


Would you love me for the hell of it

by Felixseo (kafkao)



Category: Stray Kids (Band)
Genre: Angst, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Exes to Lovers, Fluff, Happy Ending !!!, M/M, Post-Breakup AU, fwb to lovers, lee minho is VERY bad at feelings, protective seungmin, rated M for minchan idiots, seungchan besties !!!!!!!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-09
Updated: 2020-08-09
Packaged: 2021-03-04 19:13:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 42,230
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25271434
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kafkao/pseuds/Felixseo
Summary: “I only want to catch up.” Minho says, and it comes out so innocent-sounding, Chan would believe him if he didn’t know any better.“You don’t get to do that anymore, Minho.” Chan says and when he realises that he’s caught Minho off guard and rendered him speechless, he simply turns and begins to walk away.Chan isn’t surprised that Minho doesn’t call out to him, doesn’t try to get his attention or run after him once he walks away.After all, it was never Minho’s style to try and get him back.
Relationships: Bang Chan/Lee Minho | Lee Know, Side Seungjin - Relationship, Side binsunglix - Relationship
Comments: 30
Kudos: 218
Collections: STRAY KIDS BIGBANG: 2020





	1. i.

**Author's Note:**

> hello hi this is a monstrously sized fic i have no idea why it's this long but i hope y'all enjoy reading it anyway
> 
> thank you to the organisers of this whole thing u guys did a great job, thanks to my friends who, i'm not exaggerating when i say, without them this fic would never have been brought to life.  
> thank you also to the wonderfully talented artist i had the opportunity to work with, their work is a masterpiece and has been linked at the end! make sure to send them lots of love<33

Chan has nothing against Pringles. 

Really, he thinks they can make a great snack, and he finds it super convenient how the tubes close with snap on lids. He wishes more companies would take on that closing mechanism for their containers.

However, what Chan  _ does  _ hate about Pringles is the multiple, complex flavours.

Seungmin has been browsing the shelves of a tiny corner store for fifteen minutes now and Chan has half a mind to just lie down on the grimy floor and take a huge nap because Seungmin is  _ still  _ looking at various flavours like there’s a  _ difference  _ between sour-cream and onion and cheese. 

(They’re all just chips in Chan’s mind, if it were up to him he would simply pick the cheapest thing and leave)

Chan has just come off a fourteen hour flight so he’s all but ready to bolt when he hears his name being called, because  _ no,  _ he will  _ not  _ help Seungmin choose between dark green and light green Pringles, until he realises that the voice calling him is not Seungmin at all but rather- a voice he hasn’t heard in eight months.

Chan whips around, pretty sure his jet-lagged mind is simply playing tricks on him, only to find  _ Lee Minho,  _ his ex-boyfriend, (slightly sheepishly) smiling at him a little further down the aisle. 

Minho is dressed in a striped, monochrome shirt and tight black jeans. His hair is an ash-grey colour that makes Chan want to throw _ up  _ because who the  _ fuck  _ looks this good in an isolated convenience store at eleven o clock at night? 

Distantly, someone pushes open the door of the store causing the strong wind to blow in and knock over a few magazines in the corner. It sends shivers up Chan’s spine, though he’s pretty sure that the cold he’s feeling probably doesn’t have much to do with the wind.

He simply stares at Minho, like he expects him to disappear, perhaps another figment of his imagination, another dream that’s too far to reach, except when Chan finally manages to make himself blink, Lee Minho is still standing there, still clutching a bottle of milk by the neck in his left hand, right hand raised in a slight wave like he isn’t sure if he’s allowed to do that or not.

“Chan hyung!” 

Chan snaps out of his temporary paralysis to the sound of Seungmin’s voice and suddenly Minho is blinking rapidly, face stricken with fear as he turns sharply and disappears behind a display of kids’ cereals.

Chan simply continues to blink slowly until there’s a gentle hand on his shoulder, 

“Hyung?” Seungmin says slowly, “Are you alright? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

Chan turns swiftly at this, trying his best to plaster on a smile that does not look as shaken up as he feels.

“Fine,” He says, surprising himself at the even tone of his voice, “Did you get your Pringles?”

Seungmin holds up a tube of regular, red Pringles, smiling brightly,

“Yep!”

Chan tries, he really does, to not think about Lee Minho whilst they pay for Seungmin’s snack, when they walk outside into the evening chill and when Seungmin unlocks his car door and they both slip inside, seeking refuge from the harsh weather. But it must show on his face because Seungmin sighs loudly, like he does when he knows Chan is doing his I-don’t-want-to-burden-other-people act.

“Just spill it, hyung.” Seungmin says. He doesn’t look at Chan as he speaks, instead focussing on backing out of the parking spot, and Chan briefly thinks about how FaceTime does not do an ounce of justice to Seungmin’s  _ stop bullshitting  _ voice. 

“I just- I thought…” Chan sighs, and wonders how to say his next sentence without sounding like someone who thinks about his ex every other week (he doesn’t) “I saw Minho at that store and… he called my name- I don’t know, maybe I imagined it.”

To Chan’s surprise, Seungmin snorts, and an undecipherable look spreads across his face as he turns a corner, his attention on the road rather than their conversation.

“No, you probably didn’t imagine it.” Seungmin says eventually, “I do see him around sometimes.”

Chan raises an eyebrow,

“You do?”

Seungmin simply hums in response and Chan wants to ask more questions and get more out of him, but he isn’t sure how to do that without sounding like he cares about Minho. Chan’s inner turmoil is saved by his phone buzzing, and Seungmin glances at him when he notices that Chan isn’t bothering to look at it.

“You aren’t going to check that?” He asks, and Chan has to pause for a moment before his sleep-fogged brain can understand Seungmin’s question. 

“Oh... no. It’s probably... my mom.”

Seungmin doesn’t look entirely convinced but one glance at Chan’s sleepy face seems to dissolve any further enquiries he was clearly brainstorming. 

“Get some sleep, hyung.” Seungmin says softly, “I’ll wake you when we get home.” 

Chan is thankful for the ridiculous workload that is thrown at him during his first week back. As crazy as it sounds in his head, it’s refreshing to remember that no matter how much shit is going on his life, school will never give less of a fuck. 

By the time Friday rolls around Chan is juggling three assignments as well as an essay and a group presentation log, all due some time the following week and Chan feels a little bit exhausted but also very much excited to spend the weekend with his nose stuck inside books and video conferences. 

Except Hyunjin and Seungmin seem to have other plans for him, because on Friday evening Hyunjin barrels into his apartment and pulls the laptop right out of his hands before hauling him off the sofa.

Chan looks between the two, bewildered, but also prepared to demand his property back when Seungmin begins to tug him towards his room and flings open his wardrobe. 

“What’s going on?” Chan asks frowning, hands still outstretched for his laptop. Hyunjin is holding it out of his reach and Chan curses the universe for giving Hyunjin even  _ more  _ height over the eight months that Chan has been abroad. 

“You’re going out.” Seungmin states. He picks out a few shirts and throws them onto Chan’s bed, as if the garments are of very little value. 

“I- I can’t.” Chan stumbles and he’s no longer focused on his laptop but rather on the way that Seungmin is handling his  _ property.  _ “And can you stop throwing my stuff? That shirt was expensive.”

“Sorry sorry,” Seungmin says, not sounding the least bit apologetic and Chan doesn’t even get the chance to roll his eyes because Hyunjin is suddenly holding clothes against his figure, swapping out pants and jackets like he’s dressing Chan for a prestigious award show.

_ “Hyunjin,”  _ Chan groans, “I’m not going-”

“Stop moving.” Hyunjin demands, and Chan isn’t sure why, but he finds himself abiding. 

“No one except the two of us has seen you since you got back.” Seungmin finally explains, “And you can’t hide away forever.”

“I’m not hiding!” Chan splutters, “And that isn’t true! I saw Changbin in class on Wednesday.”

“Hm,” Hyunjin says as he discards a black shirt and swaps it out for a blue one. “He said you made eye contact and then bolted before he could catch a word.”

“I had to- to get to the library! Before it closed!” 

“Because our 24-hour library has closing times.” Seungmin retorts, completely monotone. 

“I- okay, okay I’ll go.” Chan quickly rushes out. He doesn’t want to be teased any further, or worse,  _ interrogated.  _

Hyunjin has Chan dressed in a pair of ridiculously tight pants and a thin shirt that Chan whines and  _ whines  _ about until Hyunjin relents and allows him to shrug on a jacket. Chan smiles sneakily when they’re leaving his apartment, satisfied to know that even though Hyunjin and Seungmin may be able to convince him of certain things, they do not have the amount of power they think they do. 

Chan isn’t surprised to find himself completely ditched not even ten minutes into entering the house that the party is being held at. Hyunjin at least had the decency to pat him on the back before he followed a pretty girl up the stairs, unlike Seungmin who had wordlessly abandoned Chan and strayed towards the alcohol, as if in a trance. 

Chan discovers he’s missed a lot whilst he’s been away. Changbin, Felix and Jisung seem to have put their pining aside and actually made their relationship official, which means Chan won’t have to let in a teary-eyed Felix on Saturday nights, worried that Jisung is in love with Changbin only. He discovers that Seungmin is not the lightweight he had everyone convinced he was, and that Jihyo is still the coolest person in the room, even when she is simply standing there.

It makes Chan pleased to know that his friends have matured and grown, independently at that. 

The cool wind of the balcony whips his curls into his face and when Chan uses a hand to brush them away from his forehead, he catches a glimpse of Felix below, trying to drag a tipsy Jisung into the pool whilst Changbin laughs from the side. There’s a small chuckle, and it takes Chan a moment to realise that it didn’t come from him. It takes him less than a moment to not only realise that the sound is familiar, but also why it is. 

“Minho,” He whispers, the words are so soft they could have been carried with the wind, though Minho never was one to miss out on what Chan has to say.

Minho joins his side after a moment’s hesitance, arms resting on the railing next to Chan’s. He observes the scene below them, Felix picking Jisung up entirely and throwing him into the pool before jumping in after him and kissing him senseless. 

“Bet you didn’t expect that to happen so fast,” Minho comments.

Chan doesn’t spare him a glance.

“What do you want?”

“Don’t you remember me, Channie?” Minho teases and Chan rolls his eyes at the clear fact that Minho has not changed a single bit in the half-year he’s been in a different county. He still hasn’t looked at Minho, but he can see a glimmer of purple from the corner of his eye, the flash of a smile, the tight grip on a plastic cup. 

Chan wants to snatch the drink out of his hand, wants to grab him by the collar and ask just  _ why  _ Minho insists on not leaving him alone, why he can’t let Chan  _ live.  _

Chan does none of this. He simply continues to stare at his friends below, now trying to get each other’s clothes off as they attract an audience who hollers at their reckless antics. The smile that plays on Chan’s lips has nothing to do with the boy standing next to him.

Then Chan is saved by the sound of his name being called, and finally, he turns to look at Minho, who is already looking at him. Minho’s hair has grown longer and his face is slightly slimmer, but aside from that he still looks so typically  _ Minho  _ Chan thinks his heart stutters for a moment. Eventually, he takes a step back then turns to leave.

“I wish I didn’t.” Chan says before he walks away. 

“What did he want?” Chan can tell Seungmin is trying to keep the bitterness out of his tone but it somehow manages to seep through anyway. Chan finds himself hiding a smile- Minho never really did make it into Seungmin’s good books. 

“Just…” Chan trails off, eyes trained on the road in front of them. He makes a sharp turn left, wondering if they can drop the topic, then realising that it’s inevitable when Seungmin shifts, clearly still waiting for an answer, “Minho. Being Minho.”

“Do you... do you still- you know? Feel anything?”

Chan snorts, the sheer prospect sounding absolutely ridiculous to his ears. 

“I could never keep feelings for someone like that.” He answers eventually. And even though Seungmin’s cheeks are still flushed from the alcohol thrumming through his veins and his eyes are finding it difficult to focus he nods at Chan’s words, like he completely approves. Chan simply smiles back at him. 

It’s stupid. So,  _ so  _ stupid. Chan doesn’t even know how he managed to get himself into this situation. He had a  _ whole  _ weekend to get over Lee Minho, and he thought he’d done great, only to enter his first class on Monday morning and find  _ Lee fucking Minho  _ seated right at the back. Since when did Minho even have an interest in fucking  _ music production?  _

Chan was well aware that dropping a semester of the previous year from his studies meant falling behind and having to be in a class where the majority would be younger than him- but what were the chances that Lee Minho would also wind up in the same class? 

An itch settles somewhere under Chan’s skin, an itch to storm right into Minho’s personal space and ask him  _ why  _ he can’t leave Chan alone. However Chan is aware that doing so would put an ultimate fail on his  _ avoid Lee Minho as much as possible  _ strategy so he decides against it and takes a seat right at the front of the hall, knowing for a fact that Minho would never stray anywhere near there. 

The professor greets the class brightly when he enters, and then nods in Chan’s general direction. He’s always been a teacher’s pet, to the point that most of the lecturers at their university are familiar with him even if he’s never had a class with them. Chan perks up at this, a familiar glow settling within him at the thought of fully getting back into his studies, wondering how he managed a full eight months away from it all. 

There’s something wonderful about being filled to the brim with knowledge, the metaphorical feeling of intellect spilling out of the brain and cascading around the shoulders- a cloak of knowledge is a cloak Chan will forever wear with pride. 

Twenty minutes into the lecture Chan feels his phone buzz underneath him, earning him a glare from the girl sitting next to him. He throws her a sheepish smile as he rushes to silence the device, though he manages a quick glance at the ID before he does so. 

Chan sighs at the familiar name, though he doesn’t glance at it for a second longer than necessary and instead switches it to silent and tosses it into his bag, tuning back into the lecture just as the professor switches the slide. 

The library always was Chan’s favourite place to be, and half a year later that doesn’t seem to have changed. Even with Jisung whisper-yelling facts about the history of Russia’s climate, Chan doesn’t mind listening and nodding along.

He’s missed this side of Jisung, a side that Jisung doesn’t show often as he’s afraid of rambling too much and boring the other person, where he spits out facts left and right, moves his hands around in a dozen different gestures and ends each of his sentences with unanswered questions.

It’s amusing, to see Jisung so bright and happy, eyes full of wonder and words full of enthusiasm. So Chan catches him in this mood, knowing that any questions he asks won’t be shrugged aside. 

“Speaking of new things forming…” Chan starts slowly, and he almost feels pitiful when Jisung looks at him with wide eyes, clearly expecting a question related to his Geology major, “…I saw things finally worked out between you, Felix and Changbin.”

Jisung blinks at the change of topic, but then the question settles in and a blush coats his cheeks as he lets out something between a mix of a squeal and a gasp and then buries his face in his hands.

_ “Hyung,”  _ He whines and Chan can’t help but laugh as he reaches out to ruffle Jisung’s hair. “It’s all very… new.” He says eventually. “But I’m very happy.”

When Jisung deems it safe enough to lift his head, Chan throws him a teasing grin,

“It’s not _very_ new considering how long you’ve been pining-”

“Hyung!” Jisung whines again and this time he hits Chan on the shoulder. Chan barely flinches, and his grin simply grows at the extremely baby-like behaviour Jisung is exhibiting. 

“I’m happy for you, Ji.” He says honestly, “Really, I am.”

Jisung is still blushing but his smile is gradually turning from bashful to slightly proud and Chan is about to ask for all the details when he spots movement by the library entrance. Chan narrows his eyes, chanting a silent prayer that apparently doesn’t reach anywhere because Lee Minho walks in. 

A few heads from the table next to them turn in Minho’s direction and Chan feels something coil in the pit of his stomach that he silently curses as soon as he feels it. 

Minho is pretty, not an opinion, simply a fact. Even when they were together, Minho would attract attention wherever they went, though at that time Chan would feel satisfaction, knowing that Minho was his.  _ He  _ was the one who had caught Minho’s eye, and after that Minho never had eyes for anyone else. Until they broke up, that is.

Now, in the middle of the library, with Minho doing the most mundane task of browsing through a shelf of non-fiction books, there’s at least a handful of people watching him. Watching the way his eyes glow in the afternoon sun, the way his hair falls perfectly over his forehead, the way his top teeth catch on his bottom lip when he frowns in concentration. 

Chan feels the sudden urgency to leave. He can’t just sit here, and watch Minho be that  _ ethereal  _ and yet not be filled with the satisfaction of having Minho in his life, but further be filled with the  _ jealousy  _ of others watching him instead.

“I’ll- I’ll catch you later.” Chan says as he stands from his seat and Jisung frowns in confusion at how quickly Chan begins to pack his things away.

“But you said we could study for at least an hour. It’s only been half.”

Chan feels bad, and in any other circumstance, Jisung’s dejected pout would have the biggest effect on him, but Chan realises that between Lee Minho and Jisung, it’ll probably always be Lee Minho for him. (And possibly between Lee Minho and  _ literally anyone  _ but he squashes that thought away for now.)

“I know, I know, I forgot I had- have- this thing. Sorry, I’ll make it up to you okay?” Chan grabs his bag and ruffles Jisung’s hair once more before he makes a sharp exit, heart beating rapidly once he’s out of the library.

He didn’t realise how much he felt like he was suffocating in there, but now that he’s out, now that Minho is no longer in his direct presence, Chan feels like he can breathe again.

Slowly, Chan stands up straight, and, afraid of being caught loitering, grudgingly begins his walk back to the apartment, images of a golden-eyed boy filling his mind, no matter how hard he tries to suppress them. 

“You’re back earl-”

Seungmin barely gets to finish his sentence once Chan opens his mouth, and he blinks in surprise at the sight of a frustrated Bang Chan. Bang Chan is popular for being the most forbearing patient person, yet here he is spitting out words of venom- about his ex?

“ _ -and  _ he’s in my fucking music production class! Since when does he have any clue about  _ production?  _ The only thing I’ve ever seen him produce is an asshole personality! And now he’s  _ everywhere  _ I am, like us having to sit in one room for multiple hours of the week wasn’t enough, he’s at the library and he’s at  _ parties  _ that I go to and- and Seungmin,” Chan eventually pauses to breathe, and Seungmin is surprised to see that he’s on the brink of tears, “Why can’t he just leave me  _ alone?”  _

“Oh, hyung…” Seungmin says as sympathetically as he can before he walks over and pulls Chan into a hug. 

Holding Chan is something that Seungmin finds the need to do rarely, because of how level-headed he constantly is. Seungmin has never met anyone as steady on their feet as Bang Chan, so it completely baffles him knowing that  _ Lee Minho  _ is the one that’s making him topple.

Seungmin knows the power of Minho, his charm, how he tends to get his way with a small smile and a twinkle of his eye, yet Bang Chan has never been one to be deterred by such things. But seeing Chan absolutely broken in his arms sparks something protective from within, and once Chan has calmed a little Seungmin pulls back with a huge frown resting on his face, concern in his features.

“You could probably ask to switch classes.” He suggests gently, “If you really don’t think you can put up with seeing him that often.”

Chan sighs, blowing upwards and ruffling his bangs in the process. There’s a steadier look in his eyes, compared to the complete devastation that was there when he first entered the apartment.

After a short moment of silence, Chan eventually shakes his head, avoiding Seungmin’s gaze as he stares at his feet. 

“They’ll probably ask why… and I don’t really feel like- you know. And maybe I should just… deal with it?”

When Seungmin opens his mouth, clearly to protest, Chan cuts him off with another shake of his head,

“No, Min, really. I should learn to deal with people even if I don’t like them.”

Seungmin purses his lips but eventually nods in understanding.

“Okay,” He sighs, “Just be careful, hyung.”

Chan offers a small smile, and it cools the deep, molten hatred for Minho that had settled in Seungmin’s gut. A little. 

“I will.”

Chan isn’t quite sure what possesses him to unpack the last of his things, but he needs a distraction, and music and organising have always been things that work perfectly when it comes to getting his mind off of things. 

He’s sorting through his last bag- a small pouch of hair care products- into an empty drawer when he peers in to find that it isn’t quite empty at all. 

A framed photo is fitted into the corner, like it was intended to be forgotten, but never to be lost.

Chan carefully picks it up, fingers shaking, because once he sees the colour of the border- dark, velvety blue- he knows exactly what it is.

The photo itself is a little blurry, because the stranger that had taken it had been slightly tipsy. Minho’s arm is around his shoulders in the picture, a busy popcorn stall in the background, along with a ridiculously sized roller coaster. 

_ “You weren’t kidding when you said you have a black hole in your stomach.” _

_ “Shut up,” Chan giggles but it comes out sounding so ridiculously fond and sweet, it puts the stick of cotton candy in his right hand to shame. His other hand is being held by Minho, who squeezes it lightly. _

_ “Come on,” Minho says, “What else do you want to try?” _

_ Chan’s eyes flicker over the contents of the park, the high rollercoasters behind them and the Ferris-wheel in front. There’s a pretzel stand to their left, and Chan is pretty sure they saw a house of mirrors when they walked in, which he’d wanted to look at. There’s so much, so many things they could do, but all of it holds the same value when he thinks about doing it with Minho.  _

_ “What do  _ you  _ want to do?” Chan asks instead, and Minho’s eyes light up at the question, slightly stunned that he’s been asked. _

_ To Chan’s surprise, Minho does not suggest any of the rides, nor the food, not even the house of mirrors.  _

_ “Let’s make a memory.” He says instead. Chan simply looks at him. _

_ “A memory?”  _

_ “Yeah, baby.” Chan’s heart rate speeds up at the nickname and it doesn’t get much time to slow down when Minho whips out his phone and hands it to a passing stranger, before pulling Chan in right against him.  _

_ When the photo is taken and the phone returned, Chan whines about how he wasn’t ready and Minho laughs and calls him beautiful. Then before Chan can register what is happening, Minho leans in, pulls him closer than he even thought possible, and presses the softest kiss to his lips. _

_ Minho’s lips are soft and Chan thinks he tastes a little like cotton candy, but it’s quite literally the best thing that happens to him that night. Their first proper kiss, shared under a brightly-lit summer evening.  _

Chan doesn’t realise he’s smiling until he sets the photo back into the corner, face-down like it was previously. 

He sighs as he piles his hair products into the drawer, and as he does so, he’s careful not to damage the delicate glass of the photo frame. 

Chan is happy to see Friday afternoon. Though it’s chilly outside with the promise of an approaching winter, campus grounds are quiet, which means he can take a stroll down the long route on the way to the library.

Chan makes sure to grab a coffee from the cafeteria before he exits the building, and tries not to think about how typical of an anime opening the outdoors feels- the sound of birds, autumn leaves falling to the ground, a few students dotted around, most of them seeking shade from the bright sun, though Chan basks in it, happy to feel the warmth on his face, a stark contrast from the chilly wind that passes every few seconds.

As Chan brings his coffee cup to his lips, the peace around him is shattered by the sound of someone calling his name.

Chan sighs, eyes slipping closed for a second as he realises there’s no Seungmin in near distance to save his ass this time.

Minho approaches Chan a lot more carefully and a lot less confidently, compared to the other times he had dared to come near. Chan watches the way Minho makes his way over, with wary steps and a vigilant glance around their surroundings. Chan wonders if he’s looking for Seungmin- or any of Chan’s friends that greatly disapprove of Minho (all of them.)

“Are you following me?” Chan surprises himself by speaking first once Minho is directly in front of him. Minho seems surprised too, though his expression soon turns to one of confusion and a little discomfort. 

“I’m not.” Minho answers, voice soft and eyes gentle. Chan sighs.

“What do you want, Minho?”

Minho continues to stare at him for a moment, blinking slowly as if he can’t believe he’s having a conversation with Bang Chan and neither of them are yelling. Honestly, Chan is a little surprised too. 

“I didn’t know you were back.” Minho says eventually, his voice even softer than before. 

Chan stills. Why on  _ earth  _ would Minho have any right to know that Chan was back? Without making an effort to call or text or keep in contact for the entirety of the eight months Chan had been away, yet as soon as Chan landed back in the country Minho thought he’d  _ know  _ when Chan came back? As if Chan had been waiting for him this entire time- as if he’d  _ waited back?  _

“Why should you have known?” Chan asks, and it ends up coming out a lot more bitter than he originally intended. Remarkably, he can’t bring himself to feel any remorse. 

“How was Canada?” Minho asks instead, and Chan has to hold back the scoff. It was so typically Minho to redirect a conversation when he became uncomfortable with the topic. To pretend everything was fine, to ask questions that he most definitely was not entitled to know the answer to, yet only ask more once he realised this. 

_ “What do you want?”  _ Chan repeats, a lot harsher than last time. He can feel his teeth gritting and his jaw tightening as he tries his hardest to keep his anger in check. If they weren’t on campus grounds right now he may have just shoved Minho aside and continued to walk, but he does not feel like making a scene in front of bustling students, most likely brain-dead and tired from this first semester kicking their asses. Chan does not need to add to any of that.

“I only want to catch up.” Minho says, and it comes out so innocent-sounding, Chan would believe him if he didn’t know any better. But Chan  _ does  _ know better, and he knows he’s immune to this now, immune to Minho’s ways of persuasion, immune to the fluttering of his eyelashes and the coy smile he uses to get exactly what he wants.

And because Chan is immune to it all, he takes a step back so that they’re no longer within one another’s proximity, barely in touching distance.

“You don’t get to do that anymore, Minho.” Chan says and when he realises that he’s caught Minho off guard and rendered him speechless, he simply turns and begins to walk away.

Chan isn’t surprised that Minho doesn’t call out to him, doesn’t try to get his attention or run after him once he walks away. 

After all, it was never Minho’s style to try and get him back. 

Chan has no idea what compels him to answer his phone at 3am on a Friday night- or a Saturday morning. His brain is a little too muddled to figure out which is correct.

It could possibly be the simple fact that he’s awake, or the fact that he’s doing absolutely nothing useful aside from sitting on his window sill and watching the stars, like constellations is something he understands. 

Chan isn’t surprised to see Hyunjin’s name flash across his screen. It was very  _ Hyunjin  _ to call at stupid hours of the morning and propose some kind of adventure, perhaps break a law or two- though Chan thought he was pretty good at convincing Hyunjin not to do those kinds of things. 

“So there’s this festival at Yurim Park this weekend.” Hyunjin says instead of greeting with a hello like a normal person. Chan frowns, despite knowing that Hyunjin cannot see him.

“Yurim Park?” He repeats, “Isn’t that like-”

“-in Daejeon.” Hyunjin finishes, like he was expecting this. Considering this is definitely not the first time Hyunjin has called Chan at 3am and told him about an event going on in a completely different province, he was definitely expecting it.

“Jinnie,” Chan sighs, “That’s almost a hundred miles away.”

“We can take the train.”

“-that doesn’t make it any closer-”

“-ah, but it makes the journey shorter.”

Chan sighs again, eyeing the time like that’s going to save him. Why did he even answer this phone call?

“Hyunjin.” He tries again, “Festivals are long. I have an early class on Monday.”

“We’ll be home Sunday!”

“And my assignments?”

“Do them on the train!”

_ “Hyunjin.” _

_ “Hyung,”  _ Hyunjin whines back, relentless. He has that hint of stubbornness in his tone that tells Chan he isn’t going to hang up until he says yes. “Please. We haven’t hung out in like a year, and I really  _ really  _ want to go to this festival. The pictures we can take…”

Chan huffs out a laugh. Of course Hyunjin only wants to attend for the aesthetic.

Chan eyes his desk on the opposite side of the room. His laptop is still open, a blank word document blinking at him, that he’d opened up over five hours ago and simply ended up staring at. A whole stack of papers is next to it, as well as an array of pens and highlighters that he’d been trying to sort through only to give up when his pen pot had tipped over. He just  _ knows  _ those assignments are not going to be done by the end of the weekend.

“Okay,” Chan finds himself saying, “Can we even purchase tickets at this time?”

The large whoop on the other end of the line is enough to confirm that, yes, train tickets are definitely purchasable at this hour. 

To absolutely no-one’s surprise, Hyunjin had already purchased two train tickets, as well as packed enough to spend a weekend out of the city. He had told Chan their train departs in forty minutes, which gave Chan ten minutes to throw anything and everything into a bag and grab a taxi for the fifteen minute drive to the station. (Hyunjin was, of course, already there. If Chan had declined his offer he’d have no doubt made a friend at the station and taken the journey with a stranger instead. Chan knows Hyunjin. He could befriend a rock.)

“This is the worst thing you’ve ever done to me.” Chan grumbles as they scan their phones and walk through. Hyunjin cackles, taking Chan’s bag from him, like some kind of compensation. 

“Hyung, you’re going to have the time of your life. Believe me.”

It’s strangely eerie taking a train before the sun has even risen. There’s only a handful of people on board, most of them half asleep or looking slightly delirious.Chan feels a sense of pride swell in his chest at being able to stay awake at ridiculous hours when Hyunjin’s head falls with a thump onto his shoulder. Chan thinks that he, personally, may be shedding the last few remnants of jet-lag, which is why 4am really isn’t such a tiring time. Sure it’s  _ absurd,  _ but it’s not fatiguing. 

To Chan’s surprise, he does manage to get some of his work done. The train is quiet, aside from the low rumble of tracks beneath them, and the girl playing a game on her phone in a seat down the aisle. Hyunjin barely stirs in his sleep, and it’s almost comforting to feel the soft breaths he lets out against the skin of Chan’s neck. Chan knows that Hyunjin will whine about neck cramps once he wakes up, but for now, he allows him to sleep. 

The train rumbles to a stop just over an hour later, and Chan is so caught up in his assignment, he almost doesn’t notice.

“Jin, Jinnie,” He murmurs gently but urgently, shaking Hyunjin awake. Hyunjin groans, hands reaching up to rub at his eyes as he blearily watches Chan pack his things away.

“Did I really sleep the whole journey?” Hyunjin asks sleepily. Chan can’t help but smile fondly as he grabs their bags. Hyunjin had fallen asleep reading a book, which teeters dangerously on his thighs as he starts to stand. Chan grabs it before it can fall to the ground. 

“You did.” He confirms as they step off the train.

Despite it being just past five in the morning, they manage to get the attention of a taxi, which drives them to their hotel.

Hyunjin had booked the most inexpensive place he could find, as he was positive they’d be spending as little time inside as possible.  _ The cherry blossoms are in full bloom hyung,  _ he’d said,  _ why would you spend your time indoors? _

Hyunjin’s idea of inexpensive comes in the form of a room that has barely enough space to breathe, but somehow enough space for twin beds.

“Hyunjin,” Chan sighs when he sees the room. There’s some kind of walk-in closet in the corner, though Chan doubts he’ll be able to fit even a pair of shoes in there considering how compact it looks. “We are two grown  _ men.  _ How are we going to even use these beds?”

“Don’t be silly, hyung.” Hyunjin laughs, dumping his bags onto one of the beds. He’s surprisingly energetic after his nap, not a single trace of sleep left on his features. “You’re tiny. You don’t need a huge bed. And  _ I  _ sleep curled up into a tiny ball. This room is perfect!”

Chan narrows his eyes at the height joke. He had been so sure those had ceased whilst he’d been away. He had been even  _ surer  _ that he’d grown an inch whilst in Canada. It turns out Hyunjin, the great big oaf, had decided to grow  _ four inches  _ in eight months. Who the fuck did that?

“I have my return ticket in my hand, Hwang Hyunjin, and I will  _ not  _ hesitate to use it.”

“Okay, okay okay!” Hyunjin rushes out quickly, “How about we push the beds together and make one big bed and we can both sleep in it?”

“That’s so fucking gay.”

_ “We,”  _ Hyunjin starts as he begins to push the bed closest to him, “are fucking gay.”

Chan passes out at some time near six in the morning. He isn’t sure when Hyunjin follows suit, but when he wakes up at two pm he’s still asleep, curled into the crook of Chan’s shoulder, rubbing his nose into Chan’s neck.

Hyunjin has always been a cuddler, and Chan will never admit out loud how happy that makes him.

Chan thinks, in an alternate universe, he would have probably fallen for Hwang Hyunjin. 

Hyunjin with his pretty aesthetics and vintage sense of style, his love for animals and the camera that’s constantly dangling around his neck. Hyunjin with his loud laugh, but equally sweet giggles, his love for hugs and praise, and his perfectionist habits in everything that he does. Yes, in a perfect, more stable world, Chan would have definitely fallen for Hyunjin. But Chan’s world is not perfect, neither is it anywhere near stable, so instead he’s stuck here in a dingy hotel room, with his purely platonic best friend snoring into his skin and a hopeless crush on his  _ ex-boyfriend.  _

Once Chan admits it in his head, a shiver runs down his spine. He feels like he’s betrayed his past self, like he’s learnt absolutely nothing in the last year. Chan knows Minho is bad news, so why does his heart race so terribly every time he knows Minho is paying attention to him? Surely a breakup with no explanation would have put him in his place, but it seems that no closure also meant no moving on. 

Chan knows why he’d agreed to go to this festival with Hyunjin. He knows because it’s  _ exactly the same seasonal festival  _ that he’d attended with Minho during the summer a year and a half ago, the same festival that they’d had their first kiss at, of which the memory still lay in his drawer back at home.

Chan feels like he’s reliving any memories he made with Minho, trying to put a Band-Aid on top of wounds that should have healed by now. On top of wounds that need care and attention, but instead he’s just taping Band-Aids over every single one, hoping against hope that they’ll just figure out how to heal on their own if they’re hidden away. 

Chan doesn’t like the realisation that he comes to. It overwhelms him, makes him feel like pure  _ shit  _ knowing that he’s still thinking of Minho-  _ he’s always going to be thinking of Minho-  _ even when he knows for a fact that he probably has not crossed Minho’s mind ever since he pretty much walked away from him. 

Chan attempts to distract himself by carefully extracting away from Hyunjin, replacing his body with a pillow so he still has something to cling to. Chan showers and digs through his bag for something that could be considered a decent breakfast, before opening up his laptop and sitting on the floor against the door, considering there is no other furniture, or even any space, in the rest of the room. 

When Hyunjin begins to stir, Chan is halfway through his third breakfast bar, and he’s barely written one hundred words of his essay. He has, however, changed the font format eight times over and figured out a way to have tiny cartoon koalas crawl up the side of his screen.

“Look,” Chan says, swivelling his laptop in Hyunjin’s direction so he can see the little animations, “Look how cute they are.”

Hyunjin squints, at the sunlight or the brightness of Chan’s laptop, Chan isn’t sure, before he huffs out a laugh.

“And you call  _ me  _ immature.” Hyunjin deadpans, as he slowly climbs out of bed. He’s wearing a pair of such short shorts that they could pretty much class as boxers. Chan doesn’t mean to stare, but it’s a little difficult when Hyunjin has thighs like  _ that  _ and they’re just on display for anyone to see. Chan notices that there are small, purple bruises littering Hyunjin’s thighs, something like bite marks. He blushes deeply when he notices Chan staring.

“Hyung!” He snaps.

Chan takes one look at Hyunjin’s bright red face and bursts into laughter, ducking away just in time as Hyunjin pelts a pillow in his direction.

“Hyunjin’s been getting it on!” Chan teases, narrowly missing another tossed pillow. “Who’s the lucky person, Jinnie?”

“Some girl.” Hyunjin mutters darkly, as he turns away to fix their bed. There isn’t much to fix, considering he’d thrown the pillows around, but he manages to make the duvet look somewhat decent. 

“Oooh, who is she?”

“Who the fuck knows.” Hyunjin sighs as he sits on the bed, accepting the pillows that Chan hands back to him, “I don’t remember her name.” He pauses to scratch his head,  _ “If  _ she gave it to me.”

Chan rolls his eyes.

“As expected. When does this festival thing start?” 

Hyunjin seems to brighten up at the reminder of the festival, immediately standing, and then realising there is absolutely no space for him to fully stand, sits back down again. 

“Like- six? They do this whole sunset thing, it’s so cool. We should explore the area before then.”

Chan nods, closing the lid of his laptop, happy to find an excuse to not continue with his assignment. 

“Can we get some real food while we’re at it? These breakfast bars taste like shit.”

“Oh?” Hyunjin grins slyly, “Those were totally stale.”

Chan completely ignores the shrieks that Hyunjin lets out when he messes up his perfectly-made bed to throw pillows in his direction. 

The tiny town they’re staying in has very little to offer, and a quick Naver search tells them even the closest shopping centre can’t be reached on foot. Hyunjin and Chan settle on grabbing lunch at a remotely empty café that doesn’t serve a wide range of food but somehow has amazing coffee. Energised and refreshed, the pair take a quick stroll around a local park, Chan getting distracted by any and every dog that walks past and Hyunjin happily taking pictures of him with each one.

Eventually they make it back to their hotel room, and with evening fast approaching they decide to start getting ready. 

There isn’t much to really get ready  _ for,  _ but with the not-so-distant approach of winter, evenings often get colder and thin cardigans no longer suffice. 

Hyunjin predicts that public transport will begin to get busy if they don’t leave early, despite there still being an hour until the festival actually starts. Still, Chan indulges him and agrees to leave forty minutes before opening time, even though the actual park is only a ten-minute bus ride.

It turns out, however, that the precaution was necessary. Although Hyunjin and Chan have taken countless trips together, they both somehow still suck at directions and finding the right way. In fact, many of their two hour adventures turn into full days out because of how often they get lost.

This festival isn’t much different, as they wander around unfamiliar streets and ask strangers for directions, only to wind up even more confused each time. Eventually, they hear shouts and yells, as well as the distinct  _ whoosh  _ of fairground rides, and Hyunjin clutches Chan’s sleeve in excitement, anticipation shining in his eyes.

“I think we found it.” He whispers, like they just succeeded in locating a needle in a stack of hay. 

“I think so.” Chan whispers back, equally dramatic. They stand there for a moment or two before bursting into giggles, holding onto one another so they don’t fall off the sidewalk. 

“Come on,” Hyunjin says, still giggling as he tugs at Chan’s sleeve a little more and begins to drag him in the direction of the noise, “Let’s go.”

It’s painful how familiar the whole thing is. Apparently the owners do not bother with changing things around much, and so when they enter there’s a house of mirrors, and a little further away is a cotton candy stand and a rollercoaster.

Chan tries his hardest to keep the look of resentment off his face when Hyunjin begins to talk a mile a minute about all the things he wants to try.

“Relax Jinnie,” Chan laughs as he’s pulled towards the house of mirrors, “We can come back tomorrow and try everything we didn’t get to try today.”

“No,” Hyunjin says as they enter the creepy-looking house, “I want to try everything  _ twice.” _

The house of mirrors is a lot darker than either of them anticipated, though it makes them laugh a great deal. Chan bumps into his reflection a lot, which makes Hyunjin burst into a fresh set of giggles every time, until Chan is intentionally doing it just so he can make his best friend laugh. Hyunjin finds the body-morphing mirrors so hilarious, he snaps pictures on his phone just to look at when he’s feeling sad. 

They somehow make it out twenty minutes later, clutching onto one another for support as they’re still giggly about the mirror that had made Hyunjin appear even shorter than Chan. 

“I’m going to buy one of those and imprint it onto my body.” Chan says as they wait in line for nachos, “Then whenever you want to make fun of my height, well, you won’t be able to.”

“That doesn’t sound very comfortable, hyung.” Hyunjin teases as they reach the front of the queue. He looks around the park whilst their food is being prepared, and Chan can tell he’s trying to decide where to go next.

Hyunjin is blissfully unaware of the fact that this is the very fair that Chan and Minho came to on their first date. It’s an awkward story, something that involves Minho booking a hotel room on a random weekend, tired of the noise complaints from his roommate.  _ We can be as loud as we want  _ he’d said to Chan as an explanation, and Chan’s heart had thumped ridiculously hard in his chest, even though he had no idea what Minho was planning.

It all turned out to be a waste (in regards to making a lot of noise) anyway, because Minho had somehow gotten the guts to confess to Chan during the car journey to Daejeon. 

_ Chan isn’t quite sure where or how they stand currently. Does it make sense to drive to another city with your friend with benefits just to fuck as loud as you can, but also simultaneously sing along to the radio together during the drive whilst you’re holding hands and have a ridiculous colony of butterflies taking flight in your stomach? _

_ “You’re thinking too hard.” Minho says, snapping Chan out of his thoughts. Chan laughs lightly, face heating up when Minho squeezes his hand. Minho looks totally unaffected by the whole ordeal, but that’s something Chan has always loved about him. Minho does things out of the ordinary, not because he likes to be a trendsetter and not because he doesn’t like to do what everyone else is doing, simply because he does what  _ he  _ wants to do. And Minho is completely unfazed by any and all criticism that people throw his way when he’s doing his own thing.  _

_ Chan wishes he could be that unbothered about people’s opinions, but he knows he’s way too self-conscious to ever reach that level. _

_ “You’re so cool.” Chan says instead of acknowledging the simple fact that Minho is right, “You just do what you want,  _ because  _ you want, and you don’t let anyone stop you, because you don’t care what other people think. I admire you for that, Minho.” _

_ It’s Minho’s turn to huff out a laugh, shaking his head slightly. Chan is surprised to see a light blush sitting on his cheeks. For the first time in his life, Minho appears to be nervous. _

_ “Actually…” Minho starts slowly, “Sometimes I do care what people think.” He pauses, “I really care what this one person thinks.” _

_ Chan blinks, turns his head so he’s fully facing Minho.  _

_ “You do?” _

_ “Yeah.” Minho grins his cheeky grin, but it’s missing its usual lazy hint, and instead looks slightly strained, “Yeah, I care about what this one guy thinks. I like him a lot, Chan hyung.” _

_ Chan’s eyes grow wide. They should  _ not  _ be having this discussion whilst Minho is  _ driving,  _ but Minho just keeps talking, says a few more random words about really caring for some person, before the obvious hits Chan. Does Minho really mean-? _

_ “Pull over.” Chan demands, “Pull over right  _ the fuck  _ now.” _

_ Minho goes very quiet, though he obeys instantly. _

_ “You like me.” Chan says- states- quietly, once the car has stopped moving. The engine is still on, and Chan is grateful for the low background noise. He doesn’t think he could handle silence. _

_ “I do.” Minho confirms. _

_ “Thank god.” Chan breathes. _

_ Minho laughs, and for the first time in a while it sounds free and careless, and Chan wants to make him laugh like that forever. In fact, he thinks that maybe they could turn the radio off and just have Minho laugh for the rest of the drive, because the sound is just  _ that  _ pretty. _

_ Chan presses a kiss to Minho’s cheek before they begin to drive again, and he’s happy with the fact that their hands never detach.  _

_ The hotel room ends up being useless because Minho insists on going on a date as soon as they arrive, and Chan readily agrees. A Naver search tells them about a festival happening not too far away, and Minho says it’s perfect before tugging Chan out of the door.  _

_ It is perfect. Really. They come back to the hotel way too tired to do anything but sleep, and Chan finds himself falling asleep with a smile on his face, wrapped in the arms of his boyfriend (boyfriend!!)  _

“…the rollercoaster.” Hyunjin is saying when Chan zones back into the conversation. Chan blinks, unsure of what exactly is going on before he decides to simply nod anyway. 

It turns out that Chan agreed to ride the rollercoaster with Hyunjin, despite them both just having stuffed their faces with various Mexican foods. The rollercoaster isn’t as high and fast as Chan anticipated, so he somehow manages to keep his food down. He and Minho hadn’t ridden the rides when they came because of Minho’s fear of heights, which Chan had found absolutely adorable. 

When Hyunjin asks Chan if he wants to go on it again, despite them both feeling slightly queasy, Chan easily says yes. 

They end up returning to the hotel room a lot earlier than anticipated. The firework show had been cancelled due to a sudden downpour of heavy rain, and Chan had somehow managed to convince Hyunjin to leave, considering they still had the rest of Sunday evening to explore the parts of the fair they hadn’t managed to get around to. Hyunjin had whined about not getting enough pictures until they sat on the bus and he ended up mesmerised by the effects of water droplets on the windowpane. 

Chan gets a call from Seungmin once he and Hyunjin are back and settled into bed. Hyunjin is propped up against the pillows, watching a drama on his phone, with a can of Pringles squished between his thighs. Every few seconds, when the drama starts to get intense, he drops crumbs on the duvet and Chan swats at him for being a mess.

“Did you have fun?” Seungmin asks, his voice sounding slightly distant. There’s the sound of running water in the back, and Chan guesses he’s probably carrying out his lengthy night-time routine.

“Yeah, until it started  _ pouring.”  _

“Oh damn,” Chan hears Seungmin’s laugh followed by the squeak of a tap and the sound of running water comes to a close. “That’s unfortunate. But it’s a full weekend thing, right?”

“Yeah, we’ll go back tomorrow.” Chan says. He hesitates. He wants to ask. He really wants to ask- about  _ him,  _ or he wants Seungmin to say something, but he also knows Seungmin is an angel who won’t say anything unless Chan does. What will Chan even ask? Has my ex come around asking for me because I’m revisiting the place that we had our first date? Does Minho even remember their first date?

Thankfully, Hyunjin snaps him out of asking any stupid questions, because he suddenly screams and jumps, earplugs flying out of his ears as his can of Pringles gets thrown out of his lap.

“Hyunjin what the  _ fuck?”  _ Chan yells, ignoring the sound of Seungmin’s surprised laughter from his phone.

“There- there was a jump scare!” Hyunjin attempts to defend himself. Chan narrows his eyes, gaze flitting over their bed where the remnants of Hyunjin’s snack lie, as well as his phone which is still playing the drama.

“You got crumbs  _ all over  _ the sheets, Jinnie.” Chan groans, standing from the bed. 

“I’m sorry!” Hyunjin says, though Chan isn’t paying attention to his apology as Seungmin begins to speak again,

“Is everything okay?” He asks, clearly trying to hold back a laugh. He can’t see the scene, but Chan is pretty sure they must have sounded like an entire circus. 

“Yeah,” Chan sighs, “Hyunjin just got scared by something and spilt his chips all over our bed.”

Chan watches Hyunjin gingerly pick up the larger pieces and throw them back into the tin. He isn’t sure what they’re going to do with the tiny crumbs that have most likely made it  _ under  _ the sheets. Chan refuses to sleep with crumbs. 

“You’re… sharing a bed with Hyunjin?” Seungmin’s voice sounds very small, and Chan thinks he may be speaking from a little further away again until he realises Seungmin doesn’t sound distant at all. 

“Yeah?” Chan responds puzzled, “These beds were tiny, because  _ someone  _ refused to spend money on two separate rooms.”

Hyunjin simply throws Chan a shit-eating grin before scavenging the room- for what, Chan isn’t sure. 

“Oh.” Seungmin says, “Cool.” There’s a pause, and Chan wants to ask Seungmin if he’s okay but Seungmin quickly clears his throat, effectively cutting him off, “I think I’m going to bed, hyung. I’m pretty tired. Good luck with cleaning up the mess, and I hope you both have fun tomorrow. Goodnight.” And without even waiting for Chan’s reply, Seungmin hangs up.

Chan frowns. That was weird. 

Before he can dwell on it however, he sees Hyunjin standing by the tiny walk-in closet in the corner, that neither of them had even bothered opening. Until now.

“Hyung,” Hyunjin says, clearly trying to keep the giddiness out of his voice. Chan raises an eyebrow. What on earth in a  _ miniscule closet  _ could have made Hyunjin so happy? “Come take a look at this.”

Chan wants to yell some more about the crumbs on the duvet and the drama  _ still  _ playing on Hyunjin’s phone, but curiosity overtakes him, so he leaps over the edge of the bed and shuffles over to where Hyunjin is standing- because walking is impossible in the cramped room. 

Chan can’t help but laugh when he sees it. 

There, in the corner of what they thought was the closet but is actually a tiny cupboard, stands a vacuum cleaner.

“So they can’t give us a  _ dressing table-”  _ Hyunjin explodes, and Chan can’t help but burst out into laughter, the both of them falling back onto the bed, Pringle crumbs be damned. 

There’s something totally ridiculous about going to the same place, at the same time for two days in a row, when little to nothing has changed. 

They leave at the same time and take the same bus ride, and Hyunjin gets distracted by raindrops on the window once again. Although the weather is clearer, the passing rain has left muddy grounds and people are splashing in them when they arrive. 

The fair feels a lot more like a festival on the second day, with people dressed in festival-like clothing, and most of them nursing beer cans. Chan can’t see anyone on the grounds selling alcohol so he has no idea where they managed to obtain those.

Hyunjin makes Chan sit on four rides in a row, until he’s dragged back to the long queue at the nacho stand, claiming they definitely did not get enough the day before. 

There’s an open mic too, that they watch for half an hour, wincing at the drunk people who climb onto the tiny stage just to screech into the mic and hear the applause of other, equally drunk people.

“You should have a go,” Hyunjin says, when the third person has toppled off stage, “Show them how it’s done.”

“I don’t think so.” Chan laughs nervously. He hasn’t performed alone on a stage, in front of an audience, since his freshman year of high school and he isn’t really looking to relive that particular experience.

“Aw hyung, come on.” Hyunjin whines, “I’ll buy you more nachos.”

“I can buy myself nachos.” Chan mutters, but Hyunjin is batting his eyelashes and making his eyes really wide in that really cute way that only Hyunjin knows how to do, so Chan sighs and stands from his seat.

“Okay, okay! Look, I’m going.”

_ “Is that an open mic?” Minho asks, squinting into the distance. Chan can’t help but laugh at how cute he looks, with his eyes all squished up like that. How typically Minho to not bring his glasses along. _

_ “It is.” Chan confirms, not really acknowledging it. His hand is wedged into Minho’s, and he’s having difficulty breathing every time he looks down and sees the size difference of their hands. Minho is just so  _ small. 

_ “Let’s go check it out!” Minho exclaims, and Chan doesn’t even get a chance to either agree or decline, because he’s suddenly being dragged along to where the stage is set up. _

_ There’s a number of people waiting in line, and Minho pulls Chan all the way to the end of it.  _

_ “Min, what are we doing?” _

_ “Singing.” Minho answers, craning his neck to see if the person on stage is almost finished. _

_ “Together?” _

_ “Together.” Minho confirms, giving Chan’s hand a small squeeze. Chan feels himself relaxing. _

_ “Okay.”  _

“Is there anything in particular you want to sing?” A girl asks, eyeing him up and down.

Chan ignores her and scans the options, eyes passing over various Beyoncé songs. He pauses when he spots one by Adele. 

“Someone Like You?” She asks, “Good choice!”

Chan can’t be sure that she’s completely sober either. 

He takes the stage, mic gripped tightly in his hand, and he glares daggers at Hyunjin when he hollers his name.

Chan closes his eyes and sings.

Alone. 

“You were so good! Like you’ve done it a billion times before!”

Chan winces, unsure of how to tell Hyunjin that he  _ has  _ sung on that stage before. Instead he simply grips Hyunjin by the wrist and steers him along,

“Come on,” He mutters, “It’s almost sunset.”

They pass the Ferris wheel on the way to the  _ sunset thing  _ and Hyunjin decides the top of it would be a great place to take pictures, so he drags Chan into the queue. Despite the line being relatively long, it moves fast, and they soon find themselves taking their turn.

“Okay, so once we get to the top, you have to be fast. Strike a pose and I’ll check the photo. Quickly.”

Chan nods, though he’s barely listening to the instructions, gaze fixated on the sky in front of them. Sunset hasn’t exactly hit yet, but the evening sky is slowly transforming into a pale blue, and it somehow looks so  _ close.  _ When they begin to move, Chan feels like if he reached out his hand he could probably touch it, and feel the cool air on his fingertips.

“You ready?” Hyunjin asks. They’re one pod away from the top, and the view is looking more and more magnificent the closer they get. 

“Sure.” Chan responds. He quickly fixes his hair and checks his reflection. Not too shabby for someone who’s been sweating for the last three hours. 

“Okay- pose.”

Chan is just leaning against the glass of the pod when his phone buzzes. As he reaches for his phone something black and yellow flashes in front of his eyes, and then disappears as fast as it came. Hyunjin  _ screams,  _ dropping his camera and then whimpering in pain when the heavy instrument hits his shoe. 

“Jesus Christ, Hyunjin what the-”

The bumble bee zooms into Chan’s face once more and he swats it away before rushing over to Hyunjin, who is nursing his poor foot.

_ “Hyung,”  _ Hyunjin whines, “Did you get rid of it?”

“We are in enclosed space, Jinnie, how could I possibly-”

Hyunjin seems to forget all about his foot as the bee appears again and lands on his shoulder this time. There’s another scream, and then Chan finds himself being used as a human shield as the bee angrily buzzes around their pod, banging into the glass encasement and making Hyunjin scream even louder every time it does so.

Eventually, they make their way back down to the bottom of the ride, and Hyunjin rushes out as soon as they’re allowed to, leaving Chan to pick up his camera and grab their bags. 

“Have a good ride?” The operator asks once Chan finally makes his way out. Chan throws him a grin, which does nothing to hide the bewilderment on the man’s face. Chan thinks he too, would be holding a similar expression if two boys came out of a pod, one screaming and the other looking barely put-together. 

“Yeah, thanks.” Chan pauses, “There’s a nasty bee in that pod you might want to get rid of before letting in the next riders though.” The operator’s face falls in an instant, polite smile and kind eyes replaced by an expression of pure horror, his face white as chalk.

“I’ll get someone to take a look.” He mumbles, and Chan has to try his best to keep the pleasant smile on his face exactly that and not turn it into mocking laughter.

“Hwang Hyunjin!” He yells once he finds his best friend who is- surprisingly- standing at the end of the queue. “You really just left me to fend for myself?”

“I was scared!” Hyunjin squeaks. “And it was  _ your  _ fault for pulling out your phone with terrible timing! Who texted you at this time  _ anyway?” _

Chan ignores his question and asks instead, “Why are you at the back of the queue?”

“We still need to take those pictures!” 

Chan sighs, widening his eyes as a threat for only a fraction of a second before allowing himself to relax. Right, the pictures.

They manage to make it to the top of the ride once more, with Hyunjin searching every nook and cranny to ensure that there are no unwanted, lurking insects. 

“Clear?” Chan asks sarcastically. Hyunjin throws him a sheepish grin.

“I’m just checking! We don’t want that operator looking like-  _ that  _ again.”

Chan stills, a very small smile slowly creeping up on his face.

“You saw his face too?”

“Hyung please, it was  _ so  _ funny-”

“-I thought  _ you  _ were bad-”

“-He looked like he’d seen a  _ ghost.” _

Hyunjin clutches his stomach as he falls to the small bench with laughter, and just the sight of him has Chan falling too, tears leaking from their eyes as they fail at any attempt to control themselves.

Chan isn’t sure what’s  _ so  _ funny about the operator being more scared than Hyunjin was of a bee, but every time he catches Hyunjin doubled over with laughter, hands clutching his sides as he tries to calm down, the situation becomes ten times funnier.

It is approximately five minutes later when Chan checks their location again, and he’s still giggling a little when he speaks.

“Jinnie?”

“Yeah?”

“We missed the top again.”

They end up being a whole ten minutes late to the sunset thing, because of how long it took them to finally get the Ferris wheel pictures. Nevertheless, when they finally did take the ride for the fourth time (laughing at the top of the third had rendered that one useless too) the backdrop had become the actual sunset itself. Hyunjin flicks through the pictures as they make their way over to the sunset thing, pointing out his favourite ones as Chan happily nods along.

The ‘sunset thing’ turns out to be an explosion of fireworks whilst the sun sets. There are people gathered around a huge area of the field, some of them yelling and others observing quietly. There are people in flower crowns, a few with beers in their hands, and some so drunk that they most likely will not remember the firework show tomorrow morning. It’s wonderful. 

Hyunjin mostly admires the show through the lens of his camera, but Chan is happy to simply drink in the stars and the show and the loud people and commit it to memory. This was something he hadn’t managed to witness with Minho, which makes the whole event a million times better. It’s a new experience, something fresh and a first time memory.

It’s just neon blues and pinks against a brilliant purple and orange background, with his best friend giggling to his left and a bunch of drunk strangers on his right. Chan doesn’t think he’d trade this memory for the world.

When Hyunjin finally releases his camera and allows it to hang around his neck, Chan pulls him into his side, throwing an arm around his shoulder as he pulls out his phone.

There’s a slight chill in the air, due to the pending promise of winter. The breeze ruffles Hyunjin’s hair, and when he smiles, his eyes crinkle up in the corners. When the wind settles, so do Hyunjin’s bangs, and he’s giggling when Chan blows them out of his face for him.

“Smile, Jinnie.” He instructs. Hyunjin grins and throws a peace sign at the camera, his smile never faltering even after Chan has snapped the photo and tucked his phone away.

“This is beautiful.” Hyunjin breathes, turning his attention back to the brightly lit sky. “It’s my new favourite thing.”

Chan smiles, and then after a moment of hesitation, nods along,

“Yeah,” He says, focussing on a new spark of fireworks that have just been released into the sky. They’re bright orange this time, mixed with greens and a few vibrant purples. It seems the firework show is coming to the end, as fewer colours make it into the sky and crowds begin to disperse. Chan is determined to stay until the end, with his arm still around his best friend’s shoulder and the promise of a new memory engraved into his mind. “My new favourite.” 

The rain begins to fall when they’re on their way back to the hotel. It splashes against the window of the bus a lot harsher than the previous day, so there are no droplets running down the window pane, but rather just frequent shower spurts, as if someone is throwing buckets of water at them. 

It doesn’t ease up during the bus journey, and they find themselves having to take a taxi instead of walking back like they had been doing previously.

It’s hail-stoning by the time they return, and Hyunjin winces at the thunder that rumbles just as they step into the building.

“What the fuck.” Chan mutters under his breath, pulling his hood back and revelling in the warmth of the hotel lobby. The building may be severely under-managed, but they at least have sufficient heating to keep them warm. “Thank god that only started now.”

“Let’s hope it doesn’t last.” Hyunjin sighs as they begin to climb the first flight of stairs. The single elevator that works has been closed off for the night, no doubt because of the approaching storm and a possibility of the power going out. Chan wonders if the old-fashioned mechanisms in the hotel will even be affected by a power cut. Perhaps they work on something like kerosene oil. “We have a journey tomorrow, and I’d rather not do it through a storm.”

Chan nods along, too tired to give a verbal response. They’ve used the stairs a number of times in the last two days, but when he’s cold and adequately damp, climbing a flight of stairs seems like the most exhausting task.

They strip out of their wet clothes once they get inside the room, and Hyunjin finds them both thick hoodies that they can burrow inside. He pulls out blankets, from what they had dubbed ‘the vacuum cupboard’, as well as a few pillows.

“This stupid thing is like the damn room of requirement.” Hyunjin says, once he locates even more blankets.

“The cupboard of requirement.” Chan jokes, plugging his phone in to charge before settling in under the small fortress of blankets Hyunjin has created. 

“No TV but a cupboard of requirement.” Hyunjin snorts, eventually settling in next to him. They huddle close, the chill from outside having seeped into their bones, though both of them are too tired to run a hot bath. Chan doesn’t even know if the water in the hotel has the capability of becoming that hot. The shower he’d taken that morning had been relatively cold.

“What time are we leaving tomorrow?” He asks, burying his nose in Hyunjin’s hair. It smells pleasant, like peaches. Chan is pretty sure his own hair probably smells like the rain and mud- that distinct smell that sticks to a person after they’ve been outside. 

“Six,” Hyunjin pauses to yawn, then burrows further under Chan’s chin and into his chest, “If you want to get to your first class on time.”

“Can’t wait to sleep through the whole thing anyway.”

“Don’t be annoying, hyung. If you sleep now you’ll get plenty of rest. Seoul isn’t another  _ country.”  _

“Of course.” Chan says, in his best you’re-speaking-complete-bullshit voice. Hyunjin either doesn’t notice it or chooses to ignore him, because two minutes later he’s snoring softly, and just the sound of his gentle breathing lulls Chan to sleep too. 

Chan’s worry of sleeping through class ends up completely useless anyway.

A harsh storm breaks out overnight, and they’re awoken by a cleaner telling them that there had been a power outage. The small amount of light in their room comes from the morning sun, as they’d been told that the power will be back sometime in the afternoon.

Chan and Hyunjin spend most of the morning listening to angry guests holler at the top of their lungs about the shitty service that the hotel offers. 

They had realised that their phones had died overnight, and with no battery to power them their train tickets were also lost until they could locate an outlet. Hyunjin had suggested finding a Starbucks or any coffee shop or even an internet café, but one look at the low drizzle outside had them both burrowing back under the blankets and sleeping the rest of the morning away.

They awake again just before midday, feeling a lot more refreshed and also pleased to see that the power had come back at some point between the time they awoke and the time they fell asleep. 

“Sorry you missed your class, hyung.” Hyunjin says as they pack up the last few bits of their things. They really hadn’t brought much to begin with, but Hyunjin had won a fair amount of animals at the arcades over the weekend and insisted on lugging  _ all  _ of them back home. 

“It’s not your fault.” Chan responds, slightly distracted. He’s wondering who to ask for the notes from the classes he missed, and most likely will continue to miss, for the day. Chan highly doubts that they will be home before dusk, which is way later than the end of his last class. 

It would be a lot easier if Changbin was in  _ all  _ his classes, but Changbin is juggling double majors so his lectures are very muddled. Chan has not had much time to make new friends with the people in his classes this year, and he did not think it would be much of a deal so early on. 

“You okay?” Hyunjin asks when they’re both seated on the train. He’s sitting across from Chan, one hand holding a disposable coffee cup and the other flicking through his camera. Every few minutes he leans over the table and shows Chan a shot, or brings the camera to his eye and snaps a picture of something outside. Chan marvels at the fact that Hyunjin never gets tired of doing what he loves.

“Yeah, just wondering how I’m going to catch up on stuff.”

“You can’t ask your professors?”

Chan pulls a face,

“It’s not the same. They’ll just lead me to the online presentations which are pointless  _ even  _ in class.”

Hyunjin snorts, lifting his gaze from his camera to crack a smile in Chan’s direction.

“Too right. Once our professor fell asleep flicking through the slideshow and we didn’t even notice because it was literally the same as him being awake.”

Chan laughs, shaking his head at what is probably a very over-dramatized story. Leave it to Hyunjin to exaggerate  _ everything.  _

“Hey, isn’t Minho in your class?”

Chan stills. 

“Minho?” he repeats, hoping he sounds as nonchalant as he’s trying to.

“Lee Minho. Your…” Hyunjin trails off, clearly not wanting to say the word  _ ex.  _

“Why would I ask him?”

“Well, he’s not a stranger to you.” Hyunjin pauses to fiddle with a loose string on the seat. He’s clearly feeling awkward, but Chan isn’t really trying to shut the conversation down either. “I can ask him for you, if you’d like.” He continues, when Chan says nothing, “I’m sure he wouldn’t mind. I already asked him to help me with what I missed out on today.”

“You still have classes with Minho?” Chan asks,  _ of all things.  _

“Dance.” Hyunjin says, “Not that important.”

Chan sighs, looking out of the window as he pretends to mull over the idea. He already knows what his answer will be eventually, but he’s trying to keep his dignity. 

“I’ll think about it.”

Chan doesn’t have to think about it for long. It’s only the following day when he’s halfway through the lecture, and he realises he has no clue what’s going on. To top it off, the professor continues to repeat the phrase ‘as I mentioned yesterday’ and Chan isn’t sure if he’s going crazy or not when it seems that the professor throws him a look every time he says it.

Chan doesn’t have the capacity to ask Hyunjin to ask Minho; it seems like a stupid idea when Minho walks straight past him as they leave class.

“Hey- Minho,” Chan calls out. Minho turns around, looking slightly bemused, and Chan has to  _ really  _ control himself not to do anything stupid. It’s not his fault Minho looks so damn pretty with his wide eyes and rosebud mouth.

“What is it?” Minho asks, approaching him cautiously. Chan doesn’t blame him, he doesn’t remember their last interaction completely, but he also doesn’t remember saying anything particularly pleasant. 

“I – uh, need a favour.” 

“What is it?” Minho repeats. He’s looking even more confused now, like he can’t for the life of him figure out why Bang Chan would voluntarily talk to him.

“I missed out on some classes yesterday, and I was wondering if-”

“Oh!  _ Oh.  _ Sure. Do you want to drop by tonight?”

“Drop—by?” Chan repeats stupidly.

“At my place? Did you forget where I live?” He teases. 

Chan tries to school his expression back into something neutral before he responds. 

“No I just- you can’t just send the notes to me? E-mail?”

“No.” Minho says, and then turns and walks away.

_ No?  _ Did Minho just straight up- refuse? Although, when Chan thinks about it, he hadn’t really refused. He’d simply insisted that Chan visit him in order to benefit from his notes. Minho always did have this funny thing of not sharing his notes with anyone; Chan clearly remembers having heard one too many rants about lazy classmates who take advantage of his work. Perhaps Minho wanted him to come over just to make things hard for him? Though it really is not Chan’s fault he missed out on all that work. If anything, it’s Hyunjin’s.

He sighs as he looks down at the textbook in his hand, wondering if it’s possible to  _ eat  _ the book and consume its contents, instead of going to Minho’s apartment- which he hasn’t frequented in half a year. 

Chan thinks of a dozen different excuses on the way to Minho’s place, that he can use to just take the notes and leave. It’s not that he’s uncomfortable in any particular way; it’s simply the fact that it’s awkward being in the presence of your ex- even if it has been almost eight months. 

Chan tries his best not to, but he can’t help but recall all the memories from Minho’s home. He’d said his first ‘I love you’ there, in Minho’s kitchen, and they’d made love for the first time in his bed. Chan remembers the first time he woke up with Minho next to him, as well as the first time he’d watched Minho dance in his living room. 

Minho is not dancing in his living room when Chan arrives, although Hyunjin is, looking sweaty and exhausted like he’s been practising for hours. 

Chan doesn’t doubt that he has. 

Alongside photography, dance is something that Hyunjin takes very seriously.

“Hyung!” Hyunjin says, all smiles and sweat. “You came.” He’s grinning from ear to ear, like he knows something Chan doesn’t and Chan does not like it one bit.

“I came.” He says, his tone sounding slightly defeated. He drops his bag to the floor and slips off his shoes before joining Hyunjin where he’s now resting on the floor, back to the couch. Minho had disappeared into the kitchen without a word. 

“So, you put your pride aside and decided to let someone help you?”

“It wasn’t about  _ pride.”  _ Chan hisses, “I literally could not understand anything in class today. Which is  _ your  _ fault for making me miss out yesterday.”

“Hyung,” Hyunjin says steadily, though there’s a cheeky grin forming on his face, “When else are you going to experience one of Daejeon’s biggest seasonal festivals? Wasn’t missing class worth it?”

Chan is about to respond, though he’s cut off by a presence behind them, his heart sinking when he realises what Minho just overheard.

“You went to a festival?” He asks quietly. “In Daejeon?” 

“Yeah it was great!” Hyunjin says, blissfully oblivious, “There was a house of mirrors and a Ferris Wheel and even an open mic!”

“An open mic, huh?” Minho throws the briefest of glances in Chan’s direction and Chan feels like melting into the floor. He  _ knew  _ this was a bad idea- literally what good could come out of coming to Minho’s home? 

Minho eventually breaks the small silence by throwing Hyunjin a smile, and it looks so genuine Chan would believe it if he couldn’t see the way his jaw is twitching slightly. 

“Sounds fun.” Minho says. “Do you want to go through that routine once more?”

Hyunjin laughs as he shakes his head, and it’s absolutely gross how droplets of sweat land on Chan’s jeans. His best friend is  _ disgusting.  _

“No thanks, hyung, I think I’ve got it.” He catches the bottle of water that Minho throws in his direction and takes a large gulp, “I’ll see you at dance on Friday.”

Chan finds that he is completely unable to move as Hyunjin gathers his things and moves towards the door. He’s numb whilst they exchange goodbyes, only finding his voice when Minho moves back into the living room area to speak to him.

“So my notes are-”

“I didn’t go to the festival because it reminded me of you.” Chan blurts out. Minho freezes, but he doesn’t look away from the notebooks in his hand. “I didn’t- I don’t feel-”

“Hyung,” Minho says softly, “I literally do not care what you do in your spare time. It doesn’t concern me.”

Chan sighs, sagging against the couch as he exhales. This is so  _ stupid.  _ Why is he so on edge around Minho? How did he go from being his complete self around him to feeling like he’s walking on eggshells all the time? Sure, Minho broke his heart with no explanation, but this is still  _ Minho.  _ He isn’t a stranger. There’s no reason for him to be acting like this.

“Look, I’m sorry if it ever came across as me trying to wedge myself back into your life.” Minho continues, “But I’m  _ just  _ trying to be friends. Can we try that?”

Chan blinks a few times, looking at Minho who looks so incredibly sincere Chan wants to believe it. But there’s a voice in the back of his mind, one that sounds terribly like Seungmin, reminding him that this is the same Minho who broke up with him without any explanation, who had him riding the waves for eight months and then left him to drown within the same water.

Chan isn’t one to hold grudges, but being  _ friends  _ with Minho doesn’t sound like the wisest decision.

Still, what was he expecting asking for help from him and coming over to his apartment? Hadn’t he fed into the notion that he also wanted to be  _ friends? _

Chan sighs. His head is starting to throb.

“Can you just- show me the work?”

Minho looks slightly hurt at the subtle rejection, but nods quickly,

“Of course.”

Studying with Minho turns out to be a lot more beneficial than Chan would ever care to admit. Minho is intelligent and patient, and he talks Chan through everything he missed as well as all the bits and pieces he didn’t understand after that. 

Chan had forgotten how incredibly  _ kind  _ Minho is when he wants to be. He explains things with the gentlest demeanour, never growing annoyed when Chan asks him to repeat something, and always picking up on Chan’s body language when he says he understands something but clearly does not. 

They stop at some point to eat, and Minho continues to talk Chan through various topics over takeout cartons and juice boxes. 

Night falls eventually, and it becomes difficult to concentrate. Chan stretches his head back on the sofa, grinning when it bumps again something solid.

“You still have these?” he asks softly, holding out the small Matryoshka doll. It had originally been Chan’s, a gift from Hyunjin on his birthday, but Chan’s birthday party had been held in Minho’s apartment, so many of his gifts had ended up staying there too.

Chan used to spend so much time at Minho’s place that it almost felt like moving out when they broke up.

“Yeah.” Minho grins, catching the item when Chan tosses it to him. “Dori chews on it all the time.”

“Where is she?” Chan asks, sitting up. 

“In the bedroom, asleep probably. She gets in the way when we dance so I have to lock her in there sometimes.” He explains. 

Chan smiles at the simple mention of the cat. Dori had always been his favourite from Minho’s pets. He frowns when he remembers that there should be more.

“How about Soonie?” He asks, “And Doongie?”

Minho’s smile falls a little, eyes averting away as he answers,

“Ah, I had to- send them back to live with my parents. It was too much keeping all three of them.” He pauses, then looks back up, a brighter smile in place this time, though there’s still a hint of something sad in his eyes, “It’s just me and Dori now.”

Chan can’t help but smile sadly back. Minho must miss his cats a lot.

They were very cuddly cats, especially Soonie who Chan often found curled up against him in the mornings after staying over at Minho’s. Doongie was a lot more aloof, but she still clung to Minho when he’d just come back from a long day, and would seek comfort in Chan when Minho wasn’t around.

Chan distinctly remembers Minho once telling him that cats can sense when humans are close with one another, which would explain why Minho’s pets warmed up to Chan so quickly. 

“You probably have a lot less to clean up.” Chan jokes. Minho laughs nodding,

“And less to buy. Do you know how much Soonie used to  _ eat?”  _

“She learnt from her owner.” Chan teases. Minho scowls, throwing a pen at Chan, who tries and fails to catch it. They both end up in more laughter somehow, and Chan finds himself relaxing completely for the first time since he stepped foot into Minho’s apartment.

Something about being around Lee Minho alone, after a long period of time had left him on edge for the last few hours. But now talking about his pets, teasing and joking with him, Chan feels something akin to their old moments coming back to him.

“I’ve missed you.” Minho says eventually. Softly. 

Chan closes his eyes, unsure of how to deal with this. He doesn’t feel angry at the statement, nor does he feel confused.

He’s scared he feels the same.

“I missed your company.” Minho clarifies, “Having you around it- it makes me feel good.”

Chan opens his eyes after a moment, slightly surprised to find that Minho is already looking at him. He wants to be honest, he wants to pretend that everything is okay, even though doing so could eventually become catastrophic. He wants to have this, even if it’s just temporarily. He wants to have  _ Minho,  _ even if it’s temporary. Because truthfully-

“I missed you too.” He finds himself saying. 

It’s quiet for a few moments, Chan closes his eyes again, and in the silence he can hear various sounds around the apartment, the rush of cars from the cracked open window, Dori clawing on the door of Minho’s bedroom, the drip of the tap in the kitchen. 

He hears it when Minho shuffles closer, and he  _ feels  _ it when Minho places a very gentle hand on his jaw.

“Hyung,” Minho breathes, “I’ve  _ missed  _ you.”

Chan thinks, if he keeps his eyes closed, he won’t be able to blame himself for this in the future. He couldn’t see, he didn’t know what Minho’s intentions were, though it's blaringly obvious with the way he can feel Minho edging closer, and he doesn’t need to open his eyes to place a gentle hand on Minho’s hip.

Minho is so close Chan can smell his perfume, he feels the tickle of his nose when it brushes against his own, and Chan thinks being unable to see is a privilege in disguise. There’s no way he would have managed to remain breathing if he could  _ see  _ Minho right now.

Before either of them can do anything else, Chan feels his phone buzz in his back pocket, and it comes as a sort of wake-up call to Minho, who reels back, eyes wide.

Chan extracts his phone, eyeing the contact name only briefly before throwing it on the couch. He does  _ not  _ want to think about that right now.

“Just Seungmin.” Chan lies, and Minho edges closer once more.

“Yeah?” He murmurs, lips barely brushing Chan’s. “Where were we?”

Chan will always remember the fact that he kisses Minho first. Minho is simply  _ there,  _ unmoving, allowing Chan to make that last choice, the last push, and Chan knows. He knows he hasn’t had an ounce of self-control since that day he stepped off the plane and saw Lee Minho after a whole eight months. He knows he’s been gone for, for a long, long time, and now with Minho just millimetres away Chan has so much to lose- yet somehow in that moment he simply cannot bring himself to care.

Minho kisses the way he always has; soft, gentle, drawn-out like they have all the time in the world. Chan kisses back like  _ he  _ always has; fast, impatient, like time has never been on their side.

Minho attempts to slow him down, cupping his face and pulling on his lower lip but Chan is having none of it, and he soon finds himself pushing Minho to the ground, restless fingers tugging at the bottom of his shirt. 

“Woah, hey, slow down,” Minho pants. When Chan continues to scrabble at Minho’s clothes, Minho grabs his hands, lacing their fingers together. Chan pauses, breathing heavily as he rests his forehead on Minho’s chest.

“Sorry,” He mutters, red blooming in his cheeks. Chan doesn’t feel like thinking. He’s scared to pause and ponder over what exactly they’re doing, knowing he’ll put a stop to it if he does. Chan doesn’t want to stop. He wants to be reckless, he wants- he wants Minho. 

“Don’t apologise.” Minho says softly. He gently runs a hand down the side of Chan’s face, before threading his fingers into Chan’s hair. Minho’s hand is a stable force on the side of his head, grounding him and bringing him back from where his mind had wandered into the clouds. 

“You okay?” Minho asks after a short silence. Chan nods, dropping a kiss to Minho’s collarbone. Minho closes his eyes and shivers. 

“I’m okay.” Chan answers.

“Do you want to- shall we take this to the bedroom?”

Chan sits up slowly, watching the way Minho inhales as he does so, biting down on his bottom lip in anticipation of Chan’s response. 

“Yeah.” Chan says, gently tugging on Minho’s hand and helping him sit up too. Minho flashes him a tiny smirk, and Chan has to fight himself to not push him back to the ground. “Let’s take it to your room.” 

“So what happened with you and Minho hyung last night?”

Chan throws Hyunjin the most threatening glare he can muster, which is rendered completely useless when Seungmin looks up from his phone at the mention of Minho’s name.

“Minho?” He repeats, looking at Chan, “You said you were going to a classmate’s.”

Chan desperately attempts to avoid Seungmin’s gaze, eyes darting over the busy cafeteria instead, hoping the noise will drown out his voice. 

“Minho is a classmate.” He mumbles.

_ “Hyung,”  _ Seungmin groans, sounding equal parts disappointed and irritated. Chan genuinely wants to know how Seungmin manages to sound like such a parent at the mere age of nineteen. “You said you were over him.”

“I was-  _ am!” _ Chan hurries to defend himself, “I just needed to catch up on some stuff that I missed out on. He helped me with the work and then I came home.”

“You came home pretty late.” Seungmin says, deep in thought.

“There was a lot of work?” Chan attempts.

Somehow the subject is dropped, and Hyunjin even has the decency to throw Chan an apologetic smile, which Chan feels like absolute shit about. His lie seems to have worked for now- a huge lie, because no way did he come home as soon as he and Minho were done with the work. He came home once he and Minho were done with  _ each other,  _ which was a whole other thing.

Chan had made sure to look as put-together as possible before he left Minho’s apartment, and Minho had giggled, in that flirty, teasing way he sometimes did, telling Chan he looked  _ fine. _

Chan had spotted the small hickey under his ear once he’d got into the elevator, and he’d groaned out loud, slapping a hand over it like that would get rid of it. He’d woken up  _ early  _ that morning just to coat the blemish in concealer- mostly to hide it from Seungmin.

Chan  _ hated  _ disappointing Seungmin.

Seungmin who had held him when he cried after Minho abruptly broke up with him, who helped him back onto his feet when Chan was utterly broken- he would not be happy to know that Chan was messing around with Lee Minho again.

Messed around. Past tense. Chan had sworn it was a one time thing. He wasn’t going to let it happen again. It was a spur of the moment decision, a  _ bad  _ decision, to sleep with Minho, but Chan wasn’t going to go back. He’d be ignoring Minho from now on, for Seungmin’s sake, but most importantly, for his own. 

“Hey stranger.”

Chan is trying to remember how to tie his apron around his waist when Gyuri walks in, all smiles and bright eyes as usual. Chan can’t help but smile back at the sight of her. He can’t remember the last time they saw one another, though he definitely knows it was before he left for Canada on a whim.

Gyuri had been nothing but sweet about him leaving, and had even offered to keep his job spot at the dessert parlour open were he ever to return- though that was more her mother’s decision than her own. Still, her loyalty was sweet and Chan is glad to have her as a co-worker, as well as a friend.

“Hey,” Chan grins back. His smile falters as the knot he’d been trying to tie comes undone once more, cursing under his breath as he works to retie it. 

“Need some help?” Gyuri grins. She’s pushing her hair back into a ponytail, her own apron already fixed neatly without a single crease in it. Chan can only wish to be as perfect as her.

“Please.” Chan says sheepishly. Gyuri simply smiles as she walks over, deftly tying the knot behind his back in a quick motion.

“So how was maple syrup land?”

“Sweet.” Chan jokes. Gyuri rolls her eyes and Chan moves away quickly before she can do something absurd like undo the knot she just tied because of his terrible jokes. It’s definitely happened before. “It was fun. A good- a good break.”

“That’s great.” Gyuri says, and she sounds exactly like she means it. That’s another thing Chan likes about her- Gyuri is always sincere. 

“So what have you been up to whilst I disappeared off the face of the planet?” Chan asks, as they make their way out of the back room. There’s an assortment of ice-cream flavours already put out, as well as all the toppings and extra little decorations, which Chan doesn’t doubt is Gyuri’s doing.

There’s still another fifteen minutes till the store opens, but Gyuri is very passionate about punctuality. 

“Not much, same old-”

_ “Channie!”  _ Gyuri is cut off by the sound of a shrill voice from across the room. Chan can feel himself instantly lighten up at the sound, and he grins when a girl with purple hair bounds over, a matching apron tied around her own hips.

“Jihyo!” He calls back, equally enthusiastic. She looks a lot like she did eight months ago, though her hair has grown and she’s looking brighter somehow, more lively. 

“I’m  _ so  _ glad you’re back.” She says, instantly pulling him into a hug once she’s close enough, “You have no idea how  _ lame  _ this place has been without you,”

_ “Hey,”  _ Gyuri scolds, easily inserting herself back into the conversation, “We are  _ all  _ great company.”

“You  _ were.”  _ Jihyo says pointedly, before turning back to Chan, “Now that Gyuri has a  _ crush,  _ she’s nowhere near as interesting as she used to-”

“I do  _ not  _ have a crush!” Gyuri whines, in a way that one usually does when they have a crush, “I just think that Saerom is very pretty.”

“Oh she has a name.” Chan can’t help but join in the teasing. It’s not often that they are offered the chance to tease Gyuri, with her sensible mannerisms and parent-like friendship.  _ She’s  _ usually the one teasing others, though it’s generally carried out in such a fond fashion that nobody has ever taken offense to it. Chan and Jihyo are not so lenient. 

“She has more than a name,” Jihyo grins, “She has a face and an-”

_ “Stop,”  _ Gyuri whines, though she laughs along when Chan and Jihyo burst into laughter, “You guys are so mean.”

“Okay, okay, it’s cute. You guys would be cute.” Jihyo says, no more mocking in her tone. “How was Canada, Channie? Meet anyone- cute?”

Chan thinks back to the thirteen missed calls currently sitting in his phone as well as the half dozen unread texts and he plasters a smile onto his face just as Changbin walks out of the backroom, whining about his apron. 

“Nope,” Chan says, “No-one.” 

Working at the dessert parlour turns out to be a lot more fun than Chan remembered. Chan isn’t sure if it’s because it’s something he hasn’t done in over half a year, but between teasing Gyuri and scolding Changbin for feeding his boyfriends free ice-cream in all his breaks, it feels a lot less like work and more like hanging out with a bunch of his friends.

Chan didn’t realise how much he had missed his friends until then. Sure he’d made a bunch of acquaintances in Canada, and they’d shared a few drinks, a few memories, but he hadn’t promised to keep in touch with them- most of them. His  _ real  _ friends are here, in Korea, eating handfuls of leftover chocolate chips and falling asleep at the rickety tables once the store has closed up.

Chan finds it difficult to keep his own eyes open once the clock hits eleven, so he makes his way to the back room, untying his apron with clumsy fingers and tossing it to a corner of the room. 

Changbin walks in just as Chan is gathering his things and he clings to him like a koala, hugging him tightly around his middle.

“I’m so glad you’re back, hyung.” Changbin says into his back, “And I’m so glad Gyuri made you work a full shift today, even though that’s illegal.”

Chan huffs out a laugh, gently trying to extract his friend from his back. Changbin sounds like he’s been drinking too much, though Chan knows he hasn’t had a single thing to drink, but rather is incredibly fatigued. He pulls out his phone and sends off a quick text to Jisung to come and pick up his sleepy boyfriend. 

“I’m glad I’m back too, Binnie.” Chan says sincerely, “Can you stop hugging me now?”

“No.” Changbin mumbles, “What if you disappear for eight months again without warning?”

Chan swallows, biting his lip as guilt starts to trickle inside of him. Sure his trip to Canada hadn’t been on a  _ complete  _ whim, but it had been very short notice. He and Minho had broken up one week, and two weeks later Chan was touching down in Toronto. It was a slightly spontaneous decision. 

“I won’t go anywhere without telling you.” Chan promises, finally succeeding in pulling Changbin away from him and patting his head instead. Changbin isn’t a lot shorter than him, nor is he a lot younger, but Chan has always felt the need to constantly make sure he’s okay, as he does with all his friends. He simply wants them to be happy.

“Good.” Changbin says. There’s a pout on his lips as he gathers his things, and Chan smiles as he tugs him outside, hoping that the fresh air will wake him up a little.

Jisung is waiting by the exit, and Chan gently steers Changbin in that direction. Jisung presses a soft kiss to Changbin’s head once he’s close enough, looking at him with all the fondness a person possibly could. 

“Thanks, hyung.” Jisung says to Chan once they’ve manoeuvred Changbin into the passenger seat. He’s already lightly snoring, head resting against the window. “Do you need a ride? I can drop you off.”

“Nah, I want to walk. Thanks though.”

Chan waves goodbye to Jisung before he begins his walk home. Although winter is approaching, the night feels rather pleasant- enough to take a stroll in. 

There are various stars in the sky, sparsely dotted out, like a subtle splattering of white paint against a dark canvas. The moon shines brightly, however, in its designated spot, never dimming even when it is masked by buildings and tall trees alike. 

Chan has only made it down to the bottom of the street when he spots a figure leaning against a building, clearly waiting for someone. His phone buzzes in his pocket, and Chan fishes it out, glancing back and forth between the figure and the text. 

From:  **Minho**

_ You done with your shift? Wanna come over? I can meet you by the 7/11.  _

Convinced that the figure is yet to see him, Chan ducks into the shadows, staring at his phone before his fingers stop shaking enough for him to send back a coherent message.

To:  **Minho** _  
_ _ Finished my shift early tonight. I’m already home. Sorry.  _

A reply of acknowledgement comes back within the next ten seconds, and Chan breathes a sigh of relief, still hidden amongst the shadows of tall buildings.

Minho is gone by the time Chan decides to step out of the shadows, and he debates for a moment, before turning on his heel and taking a different route home instead. He doesn’t want to get caught out for lying, but more than anything, he doesn’t want to risk a run-in with Lee Minho at all. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i ate so many pringles writing this shit


	2. ii.

It turns out to be utterly pointless. Chan has no idea how it happens, but he wakes up three days later with a pounding head, to a familiar ceiling and powder blue curtains blowing in the breeze. Chan only knows one person who sleeps with the window open. 

He intends to get up straightaway, he should gather his things and go home and deem this a tactless mistake like the last time. He wasn’t thinking, he doesn’t know what he was doing, it was a heat of the moment thing that shouldn’t have led to anything more. Sleeping with your ex once is shameful, but sleeping with them _twice_ is downright embarrassing and Chan has absolutely no plans of letting anyone find out. Hell, he doesn’t even want _Minho_ remembering that he was here.

Despite his inner berating, just as he manages to sit up a little, leaning on his elbows, Chan finds his treacherous gaze landing on the boy sleeping next to him for just a second, and- he falters.

Because Minho is beautiful. When his eyes are closed and his hair is falling across his forehead and his lips aren’t quirked into his usual arrogant smirk or an indifferent line, Minho is genuinely beautiful. And Chan often thinks about how he didn’t appreciate this enough when he and Minho were together, because being in love with Minho had been great but it had been too fast. 

Dating Minho had been like watching a setting sun- at first it was beautiful, warm, wrapped in a glow, but before Chan knew it it had been taken from him, and the sun had slipped below the horizon. Too fast. 

Time seems to slow down for Chan in that moment, like a spinning globe slowly coming to a stop. Chan had dated Minho for months that went by like a flash, and within those months Chan never really appreciated Minho for what he was — just as beautiful as the sun. 

Minho begins to stir when Chan is pulling on his shoes, all sleepy and confused with the way he scratches at the top of his head and rubs at his eyes.

“Chan hyung?” He calls out in a small, tired voice and Chan has flashes of memories back to when this was a regular, normal, _allowed_ thing; when he’d spend the night at Minho’s, and then rush to get to class the next morning. And it reminds him of why he never stopped, even though he hated sneaking in late into a packed lecture hall- because Minho called his name like that in the mornings, and Chan wouldn’t trade the sound of it for the world.

“Yeah?” Chan calls back hesitantly. God what is he _doing._ He needs to _leave._ Fast. 

“Sorry,” Minho pushes his face into his pillow, “I- sorry.”

Chan sighs, unsure of how to respond. It definitely takes two to tango, but Chan has no idea who initiated last night’s shenanigans if they’d _both_ been drinking. A joint project probably. 

“Not your fault.” Chan manages, finally pulling his other shoe on, “I’ll- see you.”

And then he walks out of the apartment before he can do something _really_ stupid, like crawl back into bed with Minho. He used to do that when they were still dating, and holy shit he thought his habits were changing, but he belatedly realises that he hasn’t changed a damn thing. 

Winter comes fully flourished towards the end of the first semester, unapologetically bringing along all its chilly winds and cold nights. Chan has no idea how they only have two weeks before a break, but dear god is he in need of one. 

Despite night falling earlier, the dessert parlour continues to be its usual bustling self- even well into the evening. Chan takes up a few extra shifts to keep himself distracted- and out of his ex-boyfriend’s bed- which works like a charm. 

Seungmin whines about not being able to spend time with him, despite them being housemates and Chan promises to make it up to him, until their plans are crashed when Gyuri calls him the same night that he planned to catch a movie with Seungmin, and asks if he could possibly cover a shift that Changbin dropped out of last minute. 

They improvise, and Chan has Seungmin at the parlour that evening, voluntarily helping him out back, and getting in everyone’s way. Even so, Gyuri and Saerom take an immediate liking to him, which is expected. Chan hasn’t met a single soul in his life who does not like Seungmin.

Business slows down the closer it gets to midnight, and Chan creates two sumptuous sundaes before placing them both onto the counter and calling out to Seungmin.

“A treat,” He explains when Seungmin emerges, hair slightly messed up from how fast he’d run to get to the front. 

They’re seated at either side of the counter, Chan behind the register and Seungmin on a bar stool, laughing about a stupid meme that Seungmin has pulled up on his phone, when Minho enters.

The way he walks in has Chan’s breath caught in his throat. It reminds him of the first time Minho walked into the parlour that he works at, all long legs and confidence, from the top of his styled hair to the bottom of his huge sneakers. Minho walks with grace, an enigma compared to others, and Chan has to blink very slowly once he realises that Minho is already standing by the cash register and waiting to order.

Seungmin is looking at Minho with great interest, not even trying to hide it, and Chan can do nothing but croak out,

“What can I get you?”

“Mint chocolate chip ice-cream,” Minho answers smoothly, in that silky voice he uses for flirting. Chan hates that he remembers it, hates that it’s being used on him, and most of all, he hates that it _still_ affects him. “In a cup.”

Chan’s hands shake when they grip the scoop, and they don’t stop whilst he scrapes the ice-cream out of the container and into a small paper cup, adorned with a sparkly blue print. 

He somehow manages to drop the receipt when handing it to Minho, and a small smirk is evident on Minho’s features when he picks up the fallen slip of paper from the counter and shoves it into his pocket. He simply nods before leaving and Chan lets out an exhale of relief, refusing to meet Seungmin’s concerned gaze.

“What the _fuck_ was that?” Seungmin grits out. He sounds more angry than Chan feels scared, and Chan has to take another deep breath before turning to his best friend, who is very obviously fuming.

“Nothing,” Chan lies, “He just enjoys messing with me.”

“Does he come in here often?”

“No.” Chan takes back his seat across from Seungmin, digging his spoon into his sundae. It isn’t looking so appealing anymore, the dripping chocolate and multiple sprinkles seeming more sickening instead of appetising. 

“Hyung,” Seungmin says gently, “You _do_ remember, don’t you?”

Chan’s eyes trail up from his melting sundae to Seungmin’s concerned face, and he huffs out a laugh at the expression on his face.

“Of course,” He says, “I’m totally over him, Min. He- he doesn’t get to me. Not like he used to.”

Seungmin eyes him,

“And you don’t have anything to do with him anymore?”

“Nothing at all.”

Seungmin looks at him for a moment and he looks like he’s about to say something when Chan’s phone buzzes on the counter next to him.

Chan glances over at the screen, and upon seeing the contact, simply turns his phone face down. Seungmin frowns.

“Do you need to get that?”

“Nah.” Chan shrugs, “Unknown caller.”

Seungmin nods, turning back to his sundae and something like guilt begins to grow, tight and ugly in his stomach at how easy lying has become. 

Seungmin grins, suddenly,

“Do you think I can tie a knot in this stem?” 

_“Seungmin!”_

It turns out that Seungmin can tie cherry stems into a knot with just his tongue, which is not something that Chan needed to know, but, unfortunately, now he does. So Seungmin is greatly skilled with his tongue and Chan is greatly skilled with lying, he realises, when he’s sat on Minho’s couch three days later, Minho on his lap with absolutely no distance between them at all.

Minho is so enthusiastic with his tongue that Chan has to pull back to breathe, only to dive straight back into the filthy kiss, feeling like an absolute _wreck_ when Minho’s hands start to travel south.

“We’re supposed to be studying.” Minho pants against Chan’s mouth when Chan begins to tug at his shirt. Chan’s own shirt had been discarded over ten minutes ago, which was what had caused the kiss to get so heated in the first place.

“Do you _want_ to study?” Chan asks, pulling away a little. Minho watches him for a second, a lazy smirk tugging at the corners of his mouth. He’s pretty like this, swollen lips and flushed cheeks. 

“Yes, actually.” When Minho makes to stand up, Chan doesn’t stop him. “That’s why you came over right? To study.”

Chan grins and nods a little, unsure of where this is going.

“Of course.”

To Chan’s surprise, Minho plops himself onto the floor and pulls out the textbook he’d abandoned twenty minutes ago, into his lap. He opens it up and picks up a pen that had also been abandoned, and then begins to _actually study._

Chan watches him for a moment, content to just witness Minho simply be Minho. Minho mouths words as he reads them and stops every few minutes to jot things down, and Chan wonders how he can look absolutely ethereal doing the most mundane things. 

Minho studies for a full five minutes before he sighs loudly.

“I can’t study in silence.”

Chan raises an eyebrow,

“What do you want me to do? Sing?”

Minho studies him, like he’s actually considering it, and then he resolutely shakes his head.

“No.” he jabs his pen in the direction of the left corner of his living room, “Play something, musical boy.”

Chan’s eyes follow the direction of Minho’s pen where the grand piano sits. It’s sleek black, clearly expensive, and also clearly untouched. Chan remembers Minho telling him once that it had actually come with his apartment, as well as some other old belongings from the previous owner. It’s quite an old model, and Minho had been meaning to get rid of it for a long time, except he never had. 

Sometimes, back when they were dating, Chan would sit at it and play music long into the night. Chan has many memories of Minho falling asleep on his shoulder, both of them wedged up together on the piano bench, at crazy hours of the morning.

Chan doesn’t deny the request, and instead stands slowly, wondering if the piano is still tuned correctly. 

Chan plays for the better half of an hour, anything and everything that comes to mind. His fingers begin to cramp after twenty minutes, but one glance over his shoulder at Minho serene and calm, engaged in his textbooks, has him continuing, ignoring all other distractions. 

Chan doesn’t hear Minho get up to join him, but he does feel his presence once he’s sitting next to him, warm and secure. 

Chan doesn’t stop Minho when his hands move over his own, effectively stopping the music. He doesn’t stop Minho when he moves Chan’s hands to his waist, and he doesn’t stop Minho from leaning in, capturing his lips in a searing kiss, clearly eager to get back to where they were before Minho decided to bury his nose into his books. 

Minho’s hands are soft on Chan’s abdomen, small fingers toying with the waistband of his sweatpants once they’ve crept low enough.

“Keen?” Chan asks sweetly, pulling away a little to glance down at how much Minho’s hands have wandered. 

“And you’re not?” Minho grins, “I can _see_ your keenness, Channie.” He reaches out to flick at Chan’s left nipple, grin widening when Chan bites at his bottom lip to stop himself from making a sound.

“Yeah?” Chan taunts once he’s recovered a little, “Well I can _feel_ yours.” He moves his hand over from Minho’s waist to the top of his thighs, and Minho gasps slightly, clearly caught off guard. 

Chan stills for a second, unsure of how to proceed. Minho is watching him, studying, waiting for his next move and Chan is a little star struck over just how _pretty_ Minho looks in the dusk-light. Sunlight glitters through the windows, streaking Minho in sparkly gold, bathing his skin and his eyes in aureate light. Chan has never felt more mesmerised in his life.

“What are you gonna do about it, pretty boy?” Minho’s words snap Chan out of the trance he’s managed to tangle himself into. Chan moves his grip from Minho’s thigh to his hand, as he stands and carefully pulls Minho along with him. 

Chan only manages to catch a small glimpse of Minho’s abandoned textbooks, before they’re slamming the bedroom door shut behind them. 

It’s difficult to move when Chan wakes up the following morning. Minho has him trapped under an arm and a leg, and Chan’s entire left foot is numb. When Chan reaches out for his buzzing phone, he realises that his right hand is numb too. 

Chan groans, wondering how they slept so entangled. He was pretty sure that when he fell asleep Minho wasn’t even in the bed, so how they managed to end up practically _entwined_ is beyond him.

After wriggling his left foot around a little, Chan manages to get some feeling back into it, despite it soon exploding with pins and needles. He extracts his tingling limbs from Minho’s body and somehow manages to place his feet onto the floor, holding back the hiss that threatens to escape from his lips. Waking up Minho is the _last_ thing he wants right now. 

Chan’s phone buzzes again, reminding him of why he was awoken in the first place. He glances at the screen, unsurprised to see multiple messages from Seungmin, asking when he’ll be home. 

Shit. He had promised to help Seungmin pack before he went home for the holidays.

 _Sorry_ he texts back quickly, _be home soon._

Chan looks around the room, taking in his surroundings for the first time that morning. The familiar blue curtains are swaying in the morning breeze, sun streaking through and flooding the room with its brilliance. When Chan stands from the bed he has to shield his eyes from the bright winter sun and its attempts at blinding him. 

A shuffle from behind him brings Chan to his senses. Minho clings onto a pillow at Chan’s absence, and Chan has to stop himself from reaching out to brush away the hair that falls into Minho’s eyes.

He thinks about the texts from Seungmin sitting in his phone, and how disappointed he’d be to know that Chan had fallen back into his old habits. Seungmin wasn’t wrong when he’d said that Minho had completely broken Chan. Seungmin had held Chan through all the nights he cried, through his heavy sobbing days and his empty smile days, his lonely days, his I’ll-never-get-over-him days. 

If anyone could feel an ounce of the pain that Chan had when Minho broke up with him out of the blue, then it was Seungmin. 

So Chan looks away from the boy still sleeping soundly and begins to get dressed, gathering his things and rummaging around for his belt. He’s just looping it through his jeans when there’s the sound of a phone going off, and Chan whips around, though he soon realises it isn’t his own. 

Minho rubs his eyes and sits up slowly at the noise, eyes simply sweeping over Chan’s figure tying his shoelaces on the floor. When Minho picks up his phone, Chan deliberately begins to tie his laces a little slower, suddenly not in such a hurry to get out of there. 

“Hey, yeah I’m good.” Chan hears Minho say into his phone. Chan doesn’t mean to eavesdrop, not really, but he has once again grown closer to Minho within the last few weeks, and he has yet to witness a single person who has the nerve to call Minho in the _morning._

“Okay, sure,” Minho continues, speaking into the phone. He still hasn’t looked at Chan, and if Chan didn’t know any better he’d think Minho is avoiding his gaze. But Minho had only woken up less than ten minutes ago, and Chan isn’t even sure if Minho knows he’s _there._

“Yeah I’ll ask him.” As Minho begins to say goodbye, Chan quickly stands up, grabbing his phone from the nightstand and shoving it into his pocket. The laces of his left shoe are still undone, but he supposes he’ll deal with that once he’s out of Minho’s apartment. He could probably get away with tying them up in the elevator. 

“Do you want to come over for the holiday and meet my family?”

It takes Chan a few seconds to realise that Minho is no longer speaking to someone on the phone. 

Chan turns slowly.

“Your _what?”_

Minho blinks,

“My family.”

Chan isn’t quite sure what to say. He never had anything against Minho’s family, they were all very sweet people who welcomed him as part of the family during the few visits that he’d paid them. 

“Isn’t it- like- I don’t know? Weird to see them, considering we’ve- you know, broken up and all?”

Minho seems to turn a bit pink and Chan isn’t quite sure what to do. He’s seen Minho go through a range of emotions; anger, excitement, dread, even fear, but this one- embarrassment- is new. 

“I think you should sit.” Minho says quietly. He scoots back against the headboard and brings his knees to his chest, eyes trained on a spot on the bed. 

“I need to go…” Chan trails off when Minho simply continues to stare at the duvet. He sighs, sitting at the edge of the bed. He supposes Seungmin can wait a few more minutes. 

“When we broke up,” Minho starts quietly, “I didn’t like- actually tell my family? That we broke up? So they still think-”

“Oh fuck _no.”_ Chan doesn’t even wait to hear the rest of the explanation as he springs up from where he’s sat on the bed. He rushes towards the door, ignoring Minho calling his name from behind him. Being Minho’s fuck buddy is one thing, but Chan will _not_ be his fake boyfriend. 

“Hey wait,” Minho is suddenly gripping Chan’s arm and Chan pulls away quickly, like he’s just been touched by the devil.

“Minho,” He manages to get out, making sure his eyes don’t roam past Minho’s face, “You’re _naked.”_

“What the hell, Chan,” Minho groans, “You’ve seen this- _all of this-_ so many times.”

“Minho.” Chan repeats, counting slowly in his head as if he’s conversing with an infant. “I won’t have a conversation with you if you’re not wearing clothes.”

Minho pauses.

“So you will have a conversation with me?”

“Get dressed.”

Minho does not get dressed, because Minho absolutely sucks at doing what he’s been told to, but after assuring himself that Chan will not run away this time, Minho grabs a blanket from the end of the bed and wraps it around his waist, an annoying smirk on his lips when he notices Chan’s eyes zeroing in on his torso. 

“I’m sorry.” Minho says when he has them both seated on the couch in the living room. “I should have told them, I know, but hyung, my family was so- so _smitten_ for you. They loved you, they liked you more than any of my past- my past- _whatevers,_ and I couldn’t- I couldn’t.” He pauses to breathe and Chan wants to put his arm around Minho’s shoulder, pat him gently on the back, maybe take his hand, but he remains where he is, unmoving. “That was my mom on the phone just now. She wants to see you. She doesn’t know we broke up and… and I honestly don’t have the heart to tell her.” He looks up at this, “But I will. If you … if you don’t want to. Pretend.”

“Pretend what?” Chan’s voice drops to a whisper, afraid that if he speaks any louder the four walls that surround them will spill all his secrets. 

“Pretend we’re still together.”

Chan’s phone buzzes, effectively cutting off any stupid decision he’s definitely about to make. He glances at it for a moment, then pockets it and stands from the couch.

“I have to go.” He says before he turns to leave. 

This time, Minho does not call after him. 

\--

“And you’re _sure_ you’ll be okay?”

“Min,” Chan laughs, shaking his head, “You’re not my parent. I _am_ older than you. I’ll be fine!”

Seungmin chews on his lip, clearly conflicted. 

“I just- it’s a bit sad that you have to spend the holidays alone. Are you sure you don’t want to come with me? You know my parents love you.”

Chan smiles, genuinely touched at how much his best friend cares for him,

“I won’t be alone. Hyunjin and I have that thing next weekend, and I have a ton of essays to get through. I’ll call you!”

Seungmin would probably fight for longer if his train wasn’t set to leave in an hour, so he simply hugs Chan tightly before waving goodbye. 

It seems that Chan cannot catch a break from overprotective friends, because Jisung bombards him with similar questions during his shift at the dessert parlour that evening. 

Changbin is spoon feeding mango ice-cream into Jisung’s open mouth and Chan thinks it’s disgustingly sappy, but also ridiculously adorable, so he doesn’t hide out in the back room like the rest of their employees. 

“You could totally crash my family get-together,” Jisung says around a mouth of ice-cream. Changbin smiles at him fondly _(sappily)_ and grabs a napkin to gently wipe at Jisung’s face. Chan rolls his eyes.

“I _totally_ have my own plans, Sungie.” He says wiping a cloth over the already pristine countertops. He feels nervous every time someone brings up the holidays, and not just because of possible plans with Minho. It’s always a bitter time when his friends can catch a train or drive a few hours to go and see their family, when Chan’s family is an entire ocean away. Chan has learnt to be independent, to keep connections through Skype and make frequent calls home, but it doesn’t make him miss his parents or siblings any less. 

“What plans?” Changbin snorts, spooning more ice-cream into his boyfriend’s mouth. Jisung accepts it happily, and Chan wonders how long it’ll be before he starts to whine about brain freeze. It’s the middle of December. He has no idea _why_ Jisung is even eating so much ice-cream.

“Plans.” Chan answers vaguely, “You know, studying and stuff.”

Chan feels his phone buzz in the pocket of his apron and he pulls it out, eyes scanning over the screen. He pockets it without answering.

“More plans?” Jisung teases.

“My mom.” Chan lies, barely glancing back at them, to see if they bought it or not.

“You’re such a nerd.” Jisung cackles, “Like a _total_ geek. No life.”

“Okay, okay, that’s enough baby.” Changbin laughs, attempting to shut Jisung up with more ice-cream, “Don’t be mean to hyung.”

“Not being mean.” Jisung says, mouth full of ice-cream, like the true heathen he is. “You’re not telling us something. Who do you have plans with?”

“My laptop.” Chan responds dryly. He spots a group of teenagers walk into the parlour and swats his cloth in Jisung’s direction before they can approach the counter. “Now get _out_ of here. Changbin and I are _working.”_

Jisung huffs but stands anyway, rounding the counter and saying something about needing air. 

Chan is restacking milkshake cups when a text comes through, the sound of the notification almost making him drop the entire box. He’s prepared to ignore it again, having a brief idea of who it could be, but decides to check it anyway. He sighs in relief when he sees it’s only Minho and deposits the cups to the side of the machine before discreetly unlocking his phone, eyes flicking over the text.

_Meet me out back?_

Chan glances around the shop, taking note of the few people milling about. The group of teenagers from earlier are still there, seated at the back and chatting amongst themselves, their food long polished off. There’s a girl sitting close to the window, paying more attention to her laptop screen than the heavily melting ice cream sundae to her left. There’s a middle-aged dad with two kids close to the counter, though not close enough to actually order, clearly trying to convince them both to just get the same thing.

Chan smiles softly at them, and before they can approach he turns to Changbin who is sitting on the gross floor, a huge textbook in his lap. 

“Can you get this next one?” Chan asks, he holds his phone up as an explanation, “I need to take a call.”

Changbin nods and jumps onto his feet, textbook forgotten as he smiles brightly at the little kids who have now started squabbling over who gets to tell their order first. Chan manages one more secret smile before he steals his way into the back.

It’s nearing evening, so he and Changbin are the only ones currently on duty. The back room is completely empty which allows Chan to make his way through it without an issue. He pulls open the back door, unsurprised to see Minho leaning against the low wall.

Minho still looks beautiful, even though he’s standing close to three big dumpsters. He’s a simple silhouette in the hazy dusk light, and Chan’s breath catches in his throat at the sight of him. 

“You shouldn’t be here.” He says once he’s close enough, “If _anyone_ catches us-”

“Chill.” Minho laughs, “You said Seungmin’s not here for the week. That’s who you’re worried about right?”

Chan huffs, unsure of how to explain that all of his friends are also Seungmin’s friends. Seungmin’s _loyal_ friends. 

“Come here,” Minho murmurs, and all rational thought slips away when their lips meet. 

It’s a bit ridiculous how kissing is supposed to make breathing difficult, but Chan finds that kissing Minho makes breathing _easy._ Sure they have to pull back to actually inhale oxygen, but kissing Minho feels a little like letting go of all things negative and instead focussing on nothing but the gentle tug of Minho’s hands in his hair, the scrape of his teeth against Chan’s bottom lip, the slide of his tongue when it meets Chan’s own.

“I have to get back in there,” Chan says against Minho’s mouth, reluctant to pull away. Minho smiles and Chan can feel it more than he sees it.

“Sure you do.” He teases, though he lets Chan go.

Chan feels his head clear, when Minho is no longer in touching distance, and he licks his lips to steady himself before speaking,

“When- when do you leave?” He asks.

Minho raises an eyebrow,

“Why? Changed your mind about coming?”

“Yes, actually.”

Minho’s shocked expression is worth framing, especially considering how it doesn’t last long at all.

“Okay,” He says, “I’ll text you.”

Minho backs away, like turning around and actually walking away will result in Chan changing his mind. Chan knows he’s made a stupid decision, but he also feels like not thinking about it.

Minho is simply a very small figure in the distance when a voice rings out from behind him.

“I thought you and Changbin hyung were _working.”_

Chan jumps, a hand clasped over his rapid heartbeat as he turns to face Jisung who looks utterly unimpressed, as well as terribly disappointed. 

“We-”

“Don’t even.” Jisung snaps, “Are you _serious?_ Minho? _Again?”_

“It’s not like that Ji-”

“That’s what you said last time! He’s just going to break your fucking heart again!”

 _“Jisung,”_ Chan hisses, closing the short space between them to slap a palm over Jisung’s _huge mouth,_ “Can you keep your voice _down?”_

Jisung shoves his hand away,

“You don’t want anyone finding out because you know how stupid this is.”

“No,” Chan says, hoping his slight hesitation wasn’t obvious. “I don’t want anyone finding out because it’s not anyone’s business.”

“Hyung,” Jisung says, and this look of a whole load of sympathy is somehow worse than the one of disapproval he was wearing earlier, “We’re just looking out for you. We’re your _friends._ We don’t want to see you like- how you were. Again.”

Chan looks away, wondering if there’s a way of saying _piss off_ in a grateful way. 

“I know.” He settles on, “But it’s not like last time.”

Jisung rolls his eyes, but clearly decides to drop it once he notices how stubborn Chan is going to be about this.

“Sure, hyung, whatever.”

“Wait.” Chan grips onto Jisung’s sleeve just as he turns to leave, “Can you not tell anyone about this?”

Jisung pointedly pulls away from the grip on his jacket, straightening it out before he answers.

“Whatever.” 

Minho’s hair is orange when Chan sees him at the train station. It’s been _two days_ since Chan last saw Minho and his hair is now fucking _orange._

 _What the fuck._ He thinks. 

As Minho draws closer Chan notices his orange hair also has lighter, pinkish undertones.

 _What the actual fuck._ He thinks.

He’s about to say it out loud when Minho approaches, until he takes him in in his entirety. Minho is wearing black jeans and a soft white sweater, and it’s the cutest look Chan has seen on him in awhile, considering how Minho generally dresses in leather jackets and tight shirts.

“My mom hates my whole closet.” Minho explains as a way of greeting. He tugs at the bottom of his sweater, “So I’m stuck in _this.”_

“You look great.” Chan answers honestly. 

They board the train and Chan feels a wave of nostalgia hit him. The last time he’d boarded a train with Minho had also been to visit Minho’s family, except that time Minho had held his hand tight and talked his ear off, excited for the whole journey to introduce his ‘favourite person’ to his ‘other favourite people’ as Minho had put it. 

Chan remembers Minho’s mother as warm and welcoming, a smile that matches Minho’s, though unlike Minho she wore hers often. Minho’s father was a lot more like Minho, intimidating until he laughed. Minho’s dad laughed full-bodied laughs and Chan remembers Minho’s mother fondly telling him that it was Mr Lee’s laugh that she fell in love with, before anything else. Chan had blushed a little, and then quietly admitted that he had fallen in love with her son for the same reason.

Minho’s mother smiles at Chan warmly even when they arrive, hugging him to her chest like he’s her family just as much as Minho is. She fusses over how much weight they’ve both lost and scolds Chan for not visiting often enough, before ushering them into the kitchen where a large feast welcomes them both.

Minho’s childhood bedroom hasn’t changed since the last time Chan had been there. There are still stickers on the wall and a bunch of stuffed animals crowded in a corner. Minho’s curtains are the same powder blue as they are in his apartment, an aspect that Chan finds oddly endearing.

“You’re fond of this colour,” Chan notes, tugging at the material. Minho smiles, a little abashedly,

“Yeah,” He admits, “I’ve always been a bit of a blue fanatic.”

“Cute.” Chan says without thinking. It would probably look even worse if he was to take his words back, so he simply remains quiet as Minho settles on the floor and begins to pull various garments out of his suitcase.

“I’m going to take a shower.” He announces and Chan simply nods, watching him go.

He’s sitting on Minho’s bed, playing a dumb game when Seungmin calls him. Chan thinks about ignoring it, but then realises how much of an asshole move that would be. Seungmin will only worry, so he answers it with a not-so-steady hand.

“Hey, Min.”

“Chan hyung!” Seungmin calls from the other end, “what have you been up to?”

“Not much,” Chan says, sounding as vague as possible, “Just work and stuff.”

“You don’t work Sundays.” Seungmin notes,

“Covered a shift.” Chan lies to cover his slip up.

It seems that Seungmin is too excited about something else, as he easily allows the fib to pass and instead continues about some jewellery he found at a stall that he thinks Hyunjin would like. 

Chan is halfway through discussing the specific shades of purple that Hyunjin finds pretty when Minho emerges from the bathroom, hair dripping wet and a towel around his waist. 

“Chan-” He starts, though he cuts himself off when Chan shakes his head sharply.

“Who was that?” Seungmin asks, suddenly alert.

“Who was what?” Chan wouldn’t even be surprised if Seungmin could hear how hard his heart is pounding.

“Someone just called you.” Seungmin says, “It sounded like-” He pauses. “Hyung where _are_ you?”

“At home.” Chan insists. He laughs a little, hoping to sound nonchalant, but instead it comes out slightly shaky. “Look, I need to go. Good luck with picking out your thing.” He hangs up before Seungmin can say anything else, and drops his phone onto the bed.

“Sorry.” Minho says as he rubs a small towel through his hair. “I didn’t notice you were on the phone. Was that Seungmin?”

Chan nods gloomily, falling back against the pillows.

“He’s so suspicious.” 

Minho says nothing as he sits on the bed next to Chan, rubbing circles into his back. He used to do this often when they were dating, simply rub comforting circles into Chan’s skin after a long day, or in the mornings when Chan didn’t want to get up. It always succeeded in making him feel safe and cared for. 

When Minho’s hand makes it into Chan’s hair, he sighs in contentment under the touch.

“Was it a good idea for me to do this?” Chan says, voice muffled by the pillow. “To come here with you?”

The hand in his hair stills for a moment and Chan worries that he’s said too much, until Minho continues, as if he’d never stopped.

“Let’s get some sleep.” Minho says. 

Chan wants to push and prod, wants to demand answers, to make Minho uncomfortable with his insistent questions. He wants to ask Minho _what_ they’re doing exactly, and _why_ they’re doing it but he fears the potential responses, so instead he wordlessly slips under the covers when prompted. 

Chan is woken by something warm and fluffy sitting on his face. He startles when it moves, only relaxing when the cat licks at his skin and nuzzles into his shoulder, clearly sensing the fright she just caused.

“Hey Soonie.” Chan laughs, petting her ears. Soonie purrs into his neck and Chan takes it as a hint to not let up with the gentle pats he’s delivering to her back.

He’s still stroking her when Minho wakes up, also confused, until the scene in front of him settles in.

“Soonie,” Minho groans, “You’re not allowed on the _bed.”_

Soonie makes a noise that sounds like she doesn’t give a single shit about the rules and Minho sighs, resigning to join in with Chan’s gentle stroking.

“You’ve gotten big.” Minho says quietly. Chan has always found it endearing how Minho talks to his cats as if they’re people, even referring to them as his younger siblings and Dori as his child. “I bet mom’s been feeding you a ton more than she’s supposed to.”

Soonie simply makes that disdaining sound again, like she really couldn’t care less about her weight. 

“Don’t body-shame her.” Chan scolds, sitting up to pull Soonie into his lap. She scrabbles around at the sudden movement and then pounces off the bed and darts out of the room, clearly irritated at having been disturbed.

Minho smiles lazily at Chan, and Chan isn’t even thinking when he leans down to press their lips together. Minho seems shocked at the sudden contact, though he doesn’t pull away, and instead wraps his arms around Chan’s neck and pulls him on top of himself.

“You know,” Minho whispers when Chan begins to kiss along his jaw. It’s sharp, yet the skin is soft, and perfect for peppering kisses all over. At least, Chan thinks it is. “I never got to ask. What made you change your mind?”

Chan’s brain is in a completely different dimension, so he has to pull back to ask,

“Change my mind about what?”

“Coming here.” Minho answers. He presses a quick kiss to Chan’s mouth, pulling away before Chan has the chance to actually kiss back, “You were completely against it when I first asked.”

Chan shrugs, then moves his arms out from underneath himself to lean all his weight onto Minho’s body. He rests his head on Minho’s chest, happy to hear the steady thump of his heart.

“I’ve always liked your family.” He admits, “And I felt like I owed you a favour. After all that studying you helped me out with.”

Minho huffs out a laugh,

“You don’t owe me anything, Channie.” He pauses, “If anything, _I’m_ the one who owes you shit.”

Chan stops drawing patterns into Minho’s hip and then shakes his head,

“I think we both owe each other a lot.” He says after a beat of silence, “So we’re pretty even.”

“Yeah?” 

“Yeah.” 

Chan isn’t quite sure what to do when they finally make their way down for breakfast and Minho’s mother smiles at him all warmly and calls him her future son-in-law. It gets worse when Minho’s dad pats him on the back and says something about making his son happy, and to top it all off, Doongie curls around his feet before jumping into his lap. 

Chan knows for a fact that Doongie doesn’t just warm up to anybody. 

He feels like, in an alternate universe, this would have made him pretty ecstatic. To be called someone’s future son-in-law, to have their parents and pets alike love the shit out of him.

But Minho is his _ex,_ and their little arrangement is purely physical, and he hates how comfortable he feels in the house of someone who doesn’t love him back.

Seungmin calls him again that afternoon, having picked out the perfect gift for Hyunjin. Chan has no idea why Seungmin is so intent on buying something for their friend, but he also doesn’t think he’s in the position to be asking questions, considering how Seungmin hadn’t asked any after their phone call the previous day. 

Minho suggests that they go out for lunch, and Chan feels his mouth dry up completely when the waitress tells them they make a cute couple. The question of asking Minho why he didn’t deny the statement is on the tip of Chan’s tongue, until he belatedly realises that he didn’t either. 

When they leave after lunch to take a walk in a nearby park, a woman selling roses stops and offers them one. Perhaps their linked pinkies give off _couple vibes,_ but the lady seems so happy to see a couple that Chan doesn’t even protest when Minho pays for it and hands it to Chan.

It seems the entire universe is out to remind Chan that no he is not dating the boy he once was, as well as the fact that they make a _cute couple._ The word ‘couple’ runs up and down Chan’s mind all day and it makes him dizzy. He feels like he has something right in front of him, but it disappears every time he reaches out for it. Like a mirage in a hot desert, being with Lee Minho is so close, yet so far away, it may as well be a figment of his imagination.

When night falls and they’re lying in Minho’s bed, Chan takes the risk and asks. 

“Why did you break up with me?”

Minho stills next to him for so long that Chan thinks he may have fallen asleep, but eventually Minho shifts a little. He turns over, so they’re facing one another and Chan finds himself having to look away, because the sight of Minho this close, even in the dark is a lot to handle. 

“Why?” Minho asks.

“Yeah,” Chan sighs, “What- what went wrong? Why did you need me out of your life so bad?”

Minho doesn’t say anything for a moment and Chan is afraid that he’s just overstepped all of the unspoken boundaries that they had set up between them, but he _needs_ to know. It’s been biting away at him all day, and it won’t settle until he receives an answer. Or at least tries to. 

“You’re back in my life now aren’t you?” Minho says, instead of giving an actual response.

“Well yeah but-”

“Don’t dwell on the past, Channie.” Minho sighs and he pats Chan’s chest, his tone sounding like Chan had just asked why Minho hadn’t studied hard enough for a test or why he’d just dropped an expensive dish. 

Chan feels something deep within himself shatter, as he realises that, to Minho, breaking up was really just as trivial as a failed test and smashed crockery. To Minho, breaking up was nothing more than leaving, and leaving meant nothing at all. 

Chan knows first-hand, that leaving, means nothing at all. 

Chan manages to survive the last three days at Minho’s home, just as planned. He bonds with Minho’s mother over her favourite plants, he watches sports with Minho’s father, and even entertains Minho’s younger cousins when they come barrelling in at full excitement. Chan wonders how they even managed to remember him, and shakes it off as kids being excited at the prospect of anyone willing to play with them.

He even manages to get on Soonie and Doongie’s good side, which is difficult to reach. And all the while he steals secret glances at Minho, watches him chatter with his parents, tease the kids and pet his cats, like he can’t ever bear to let any of them go. 

And Chan almost buys it, this angelic image of his ex-boyfriend, but every time he has to catch himself and remember that that’s all Minho is to him, no matter how many times his family joke about their next family gathering being an engagement party, there’s a sinking feeling in his gut, knowing that all of this is temporary. 

They’re seated on a bench at the train station when Chan gets a phone call. Minho has his head on Chan’s shoulder, looking a dozen different types of sleepy due to their early start.

He frowns at the noise, a clear disturbance to the nap he was taking on Chan’s shoulder and Chan laughs softly, apologising for the disruption before he pulls out his phone. 

One look at the caller ID and he shoves his phone back into his pocket, ignoring Minho’s sleepy questions and instead uses a hand to press Minho’s face back into his neck.

“Rest.” Chan says, “I’ll wake you when we have to board.” 

Minho somehow manages to fall asleep even when they get on the train. Chan is working on his laptop, whilst Minho continues to doze on his shoulder, blissfully unaware of the crying baby three aisles down and the arguing teenagers in the seat behind them. Chan puts up with the noise for a total of five minutes before plugging his headphones in and getting to work. 

“Your phone was buzzing the whole journey.” Minho notes sleepily as they step onto the platform. Chan frowns, pulling out his phone. He doesn’t remember hearing anything.

However, true to Minho’s word, Chan has about seven missed calls as well as numerous unread text messages. They’re all from the same person.

“Is it Seungmin?” Minho asks. He’s still looking sleepy, his eyes not fully open and a light flush smattered across his nose and cheeks. His hair is fluffy, and sticking up a little at the back. Without thinking, Chan reaches out to pat it down. 

“No.” He responds, also without thinking.

“No?” Minho questions, “Then who-”

“Just…” Chan sighs, suddenly starting to feel the weight of all the lies he’s been telling for the last month. He doesn’t _mean_ to keep the truth from people he cares about, however he’s currently in the state of treating it like a problem that will go away if he ignores it for long enough. “No one important.” He settles on, “Yeah, no one important.”

It’s strange, returning to a vacant apartment.

Sharing a living space with Seungmin meant that Chan rarely came back to emptiness, because Seungmin was pretty much always home. 

Chan sets his luggage down on his bed, and then heavily takes a seat next to it. 

The last four days seem to have drained him of all his energy, like a battery completely down to its last percentage. As if on cue, his phone pings with a text, and he shoots it an accusatory look, like it’s the source of all his problems, then sighs in relief when he reads that it’s only Hyunjin, reminding him that they have plans on Saturday.

Right. More plans. More socialising. More social battery drainage. 

Chan loves Hyunjin, he loves going on adventures with him and getting lost in the middle of nowhere, but Chan is also _really_ behind on his school work, considering how much of his time he’s been lending to Minho recently. 

Chan also feels like he needs a huge break.

He’s about to call Hyunjin, to cancel, when an incoming call from Hyunjin himself startles him.

“Hyung!” Hyunjin’s voice comes through the phone, clear and excited. 

“Hey Jinnie,” Chan responds, hoping his voice doesn’t sound as tired as he feels. 

“So I was thinking,” it seems to work, as Hyunjin continues like all he needed was affirmation that Chan was ready to listen, “We could go out for lunch before we go exploring that abandoned place tomorrow. There’s this new sushi place…” Chan listens to Hyunjin talk about his favourite seafood, and tries his best not to nod off. Hyunjin is giggly and bouncy when he’s excited, and it makes Chan smile, despite his eyes fighting to close.

Eventually, Hyunjin either notices that Chan has barely said a word, or runs out of types of Japanese food to talk about, because he goes strangely quiet.

“Are you okay, hyung?” He asks. There’s a pause, which sounds like Hyunjin wants to say something more so Chan stays quiet. Hyunjin continues, quieter this time, “I feel like I haven’t seen you in a while. Is that weird? You kind of… disappeared?”

Chan sighs. Hyunjin is not the first to say this to him.

“I’m fine, Jinnie, just- school and stuff. Been busy. Kinda tired.”

Hyunjin hums in an understanding tone, but it also sounds like the tone he uses when Chan is clearly talking bullshit. 

“Okay hyung, get some rest.”

Eventually, Hyunjin hangs up and Chan somehow convinces himself to get ready for bed. It’s only late afternoon, but Chan falls into a deep sleep anyway.

Chan had met Hyunjin when he was baby-faced and scared in his first year of college. He had been in the same dance class as Felix, which is where Chan saw him for the first time, shy and nervous and looking all sorts of anxious. 

Chan remembers telling Felix to bring his new friend with him for lunch, because Hyunjin hadn’t stopped smiling the whole day. 

The first time Chan saw Minho was when he walked into the dessert shop, looking like something off a magazine cover. Sure, Chan had seen Minho briefly before. He hung out with Hyunjin and Felix often, despite being a year above them in dance. Chan hadn’t spoken to Minho until the brief ‘Thank you, have a good day’ at the parlour, and truthfully speaking, Chan hadn’t really thought about him much after that. Sure he’d thought Minho was pretty, but he also didn’t really have the time for relationships, even casual flings, with how tied up he’d been with school. 

There had also been various… rumours surrounding Minho. Rumours about how he barely kept a relationship for a week, as well as all the people that claimed to have slept with him only to be dropped the following morning. Chan didn’t like to judge people about their life decisions, but no matter how pretty Minho was, he wasn’t interested in getting involved with someone of that sort.

So surprise was putting it lightly, when Hyunjin told Chan that Minho had had his eye on him for a while. 

“Please hyung,” Chan remembers Hyunjin begging, “Just give him a chance.” Chan had rolled his eyes at Hyunjin’s dramatics,

“He can _so_ easily find someone else, Jinnie.” Chan had been wiping down tables at the parlour at the time, and had swatted the cloth at Hyunjin when he tried to grip onto his sleeve, “I’m sure he’ll get over the heartbreak of my rejection.”

Hyunjin had decided to pout at Chan for the rest of his shift, not budging even when Changbin and Gyuri came in and started to poke him in the ribs, trying to get him to drop the act. 

It turned out that Hyunjin somehow got his way anyway. 

There had been a party, not too long after that. Chan hadn’t necessarily been very drunk, but he was definitely a little tipsy, and Minho looked particularly pretty under fairy lights, it seemed.

It turned into a friends with benefits thing, until Chan was seeing Minho more than he was seeing anybody else. They went to movies together, hung out at the mall, and sometimes Minho would even wait outside Chan’s classes for him, simply to walk him to work. 

Hyunjin had been absolutely distraught when he found out that they broke up. But not only was there distress and guilt, Chan had also noticed confusion. He couldn’t help but connect with Hyunjin on that emotion- confusion. Confusion as to why Minho had broken it off so suddenly, confusion about why Minho had strung him along for so long if he was only planning on dropping him in the end anyway. Confusion on how sweet, lovely, sensitive Minho could break it off like they were nothing, and hardly react upon being told barely a week later, that his (ex) boyfriend was going abroad for a full semester, and some more. 

Chan still has no idea how Lee Minho acted like everything was completely fine, a full eight months later. 

“He’s full of surprises.” Hyunjin says over the sushi that weekend. His cheeks are full with food, and when he speaks his words are muffled, yet he’s _still_ reaching over the table to dig his chopsticks through Chan’s serving. Chan had given up on trying to stop him a mere three minutes into them sitting down. “Like,” Hyunjin continues, “He turned up at my place, two days ago in the afternoon. Had some backpack on his back- no idea where he’d been but hyung doesn’t really answer questions y’know? Anyways he had this backpack and he just came into my apartment and napped for like two hours then went home.” Hyunjin shakes his head, in the same fond way he does when he’s talking about his dog, “Minho hyung is – strange.”

Chan snorts, pushing Hyunjin’s chopsticks away with his own,

“You got that right.” He allows Hyunjin to pick at a few more things from his plate before continuing, “So what is this abandoned place?”

“I actually have no clue.” Hyunjin swallows (for possibly the first time since they started eating) and begins to stretch his hands out in wide gestures as he speaks, “It’s just this huge- _place._ Someone from my photography class told me about it.”

“Is it safe?”

“Fuck no.” Hyunjin laughs, “But that’s the fun of it.”

The abandoned building turns out to be exactly what Chan expected- a crumbling building, with rotting walls and peeling wallpaper. It could have previously been a house or it could have been a school, it’s impossible to tell with the amount of _junk_ that’s been strewn about. 

Hyunjin doesn’t let this deter him however. 

He positions Chan in front of a door that’s barely hanging off its hinges and makes him discard his bag and jacket in the corner of the room, before straightening out his clothes and patting down any wrinkles he can see. When his elbow knocks into a nearby table, a chunk of wood falls to the floor and lands with a thud, causing a heavy amount of dust to fly into the air.

Chan turns away, knowing that Hyunjin will kill him if he looks teary-eyed during the shoot. 

“Are you sure this is legal, Jinnie?” Chan asks as Hyunjin fiddles with the settings on his camera. He hasn’t brought his tripod along like he usually does, in case they have to make a quick escape.

“Of course.” Hyunjin returns, without looking up. “Soobin showed me a bunch of cool photos he took here.” He glances at Chan, and when he spots the confused look on his face, he clarifies, “Soobin from photography.”

“Just because Soobin from photography took pictures here that- makes it legal?” 

“I mean, yeah,” Hyunjin says, holding his camera up. Chan takes this as his queue to pose, and he does so, looking into the distance like Hyunjin had previously instructed him to. Hyunjin snaps the photo and then clicks back at it, sighing before he fiddles with the settings again. “Because Soobin’s dad is a cop.” He continues.

“So is Soobin’s dad going to bail you out of jail when you get caught for trespassing?” 

Hyunjin snorts and snaps another photo. It must have come out right this time, because he snaps a few more before responding. 

“You don’t go to jail for trespassing, hyung. You just get fined, maybe like- community service if it was serious.”

“Sounds like you’re speaking from experience.” Chan teases. 

“Soobin got done for trespassing once.” Hyunjin says matter-of-factly and Chan would roll his eyes if Hyunjin hadn’t gestured for him to stand still.

“Of course he did.” 

Hyunjin seems to find Chan’s perturbation particularly amusing, as he ventures further into the building, and makes him stand in front of various objects. He insists it’s for the lighting, for the angles and the props but Chan has _seen_ Hyunjin’s Instagram and he knows he will not be posting more than three of the photos he’s just taken in the last two hours.

They only begin to realise how late it’s getting when the sun starts to dip below the horizon, cutting off their source of natural light.

“Shit.” Hyunjin says when he notices that the room has started to become dark. “We should leave.”

“You think so?” Chan replies sarcastically. Hyunjin ignores him and begins to pack away the few bits of his camera gear and then swings his bag over his shoulder. 

They’re just stepping onto the footpath when Chan grips Hyunjin’s arm, effectively stopping him.

“Hyung?” Hyunjin asks, “What is it?”

“I left my bag in there.” Chan says slowly.

Hyunjin turns to look at the building they just left. Sunset is long since over and done with, no remnants of the sun left behind in the dark street they’re currently standing in. Aside from a street lamp a little away from them, there isn’t much light at all.

“I’m not going back in.” Hyunjin shivers. The night is starting to feel cold. 

“I’ll go in myself,” Chan finds himself saying, “Just- just wait here.”

Hyunjin grins,

“I bet you’ll come out in like two seconds and _beg_ me to come back with you.”

Chan snorts at Hyunjin’s words. Unlike Hyunjin, he’s only concerned about _safety,_ and not ghouls. 

“I bet you’re wrong. _I_ bet you’ll be more scared to stand out here alone.”

Hyunjin tsks, shaking his head as if Chan has just said the worst thing possible.

“You know better than anyone how bets can bite you in the ass, hyung.”

Chan frowns,

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

A mixture of emotions flash across Hyunjin’s features. Surprise, which is suddenly squashed down by guilt and perhaps- sadness? It all passes so quickly, Chan can barely tell one from the other.

“Nothing,” Hyunjin says, dropping his head, “Let’s go get your bag.” 

Chan’s head is lolling against the window when his phone buzzes in Hyunjin’s hold. Hyunjin’s own phone had died somewhere between going back to get Chan’s bag and the walk to the bus stop, so he’d taken Chan’s out of sheer boredom. 

“Uh, hyung?”

Chan doesn’t even bother to open his eyes as he swats at where he thinks Hyunjin probably has his hand outstretched, 

“I’ll check it when I get home.”

“It’s your tutor.”

Chan opens one eye,

“What does he want?”

Hyunjin stretches his hand out further in a gesture for Chan to just take his damn phone. Chan sighs as he sits up, and opens up the email, barely paying attention to the words as his eyes scan over the screen.

He pauses. Reads it again.

“Well, fuck.” 

Hyunjin hesitates at his side, clearly torn between being invasive and being a good friend. 

“He said,” Chan breaks off with something between a mix of a scoff and perhaps a half-sob, “My grades are currently so shit, I might have to- to repeat some classes.”

 _“What?”_ Hyunjin pretty much _yells._ “But that’s insane! You’re so good at school!”

“I missed the whole of the final semester last year to go to fucking Canada, Hyunjin. I only scraped into this year with retake tests.” 

Hyunjin frowns,

“But last year is- last year?”

Chan cracks a small smile, 

“You know it doesn’t work like that Jinnie.”

“Well shit,” Hyunjin breathes out a large puff of air, before swinging an arm around Chan’s shoulders. It feels nice. Less alone. “What are you going to do?”

“Sleep.” Chan says after a moment of mental turmoil.

Hyunjin snorts, and then uses the palm of his hand to direct Chan’s head to his shoulder.

“Great idea, hyung.” He murmurs, “Great idea.”

\--

“So I had a lovely little run in with Jisung yesterday.”

The words take a moment to register in Chan’s brain. He’s seated at Minho’s desk in his bedroom, laptop open in front of him as he attempts to work on a project. He’d initially come around to get some help on his assignment, though he and Minho had gotten a little- _distracted._

Still, Minho had been kind enough to let him stay and finish his work, once they were finished with each other. The sun is filtering in through the open window and despite the slight chill that’s being carried outside, it feels nice against Chan’s bare back. Dori sits at his feet, rubbing her face against the soft fabric of his sweats and purring in that way she does when she wants to be picked up and given attention. 

“Oh?” Chan responds, as he turns away from his laptop to pick up the kitten and place her in his lap. Dori meows appreciatively and somehow manages to curl up against his torso. 

“Yeah.” Minho huffs out a laugh. Chan doesn’t turn to face him, in slight fear of whatever expression he may be wearing. 

Minho doesn’t say anything for a moment, and Chan thinks he might have dropped the topic, until there’s the sound of Minho standing from the bed and padding over to Chan’s chair.

He takes Dori from Chan’s arms, and cradles her in his own. 

“Can you keep your bodyguards away from me?” Minho says, “I don’t really appreciate being tracked down just to be yelled at.”

Chan sighs, refusing to move his gaze from where it’s still fixed on his laptop. The words are blurring in front of his eyes, in fact, he can’t even remember what he was writing about, but he wants to pretend he can. He wants to pretend that Minho’s words don’t bother him. 

“I didn’t _send_ him to yell at you-”

“I never blamed-”

“- _and,”_ Chan continues, as if he hadn’t been interrupted “Jisung only found out because you decided to recklessly come and visit me at work.”

“Look, I’m not-” Minho pauses and Chan can tell he’s doing that thing where he mentally counts to six before opening his mouth to speak. Chan wishes he’d count some fucking more, because when he speaks it’s all bullshit anyway. “I just don’t see why we _still_ have to keep our friendship a secret. It’s making shit so difficult.”

“Friendship?” Chan scoffs, “Is that what we have?” He pauses to roll his eyes as dramatically as possible, “Sure we can tell everyone about our _friendship,_ if you want to encounter more Jisung-like run-ins with the rest of my friends.”

“We- we’re not friends?” Minho’s voice has dropped to something small. There’s no longer any of that previous anger or pent up frustration. It sounds like Minho’s a balloon, gradually running out of air. 

“Friends don’t fuck, Minho.” Chan snaps. “Why is it not okay for me to not tell my friends about whatever the fuck this is? At least I had the guts to tell them when we _broke up.”_

Chan feels like he’s ranting at a blank wall. Minho has his guard up all over again, lips in a thin line, his only movement coming from the way he absentmindedly strokes at Dori’s fur. When she squeaks, he simply lets her go and she scampers out of the door. Minho barely blinks.

“If,” Chan begins slowly, quietly, “If you were so unwilling to tell your family, so willing to stay _friends,_ why- why did you even break up with me in the first place?” 

Chan has to hold back a frustrated scream, when Minho simply continues to stare in silence. It doesn’t just feel like he’s put a single guard back up, it feels like he’s built layer after brick layer and installed security gates and guard dogs to keep out anyone who even dares to speak about feelings or emotions to him.

Chan feels like he’s staring at a very tall, very high prison, with no way of getting out and no way of getting in either. 

“Minho,” Chan says softly. Maybe he can bring Minho back with gentleness. Kindness. A gentle knock on the huge, hostile steel doors. “Don’t I deserve an explanation?”

“Is it not fucking _obvious_ Chan?” Minho snaps.

It scares Chan. He doesn’t just wince, he _jumps,_ at the sudden retort. Minho’s tone is as cold as the frosty wind that continues to swell around them. “Can’t you see how hard it is to _be_ with you?”

“…be with me?” Chan responds, voice small.

“You’re so- _ugh.”_ Minho pushes a hand through his hair and begins to pace around the room. He’s avoiding Chan’s gaze. 

“You’re fucking _clingy,_ and you want too much, and your _friends-_ they’re way too protective and I just- I _can’t_ be with someone like you.”

“Someone like me.” Chan repeats, monotone. 

“Yes! Someone like you! Someone so-” He sighs, clamping his mouth shut. “Look, I’m not going to walk around and tell you all your flaws-”

Chan snaps his laptop shut, effectively cutting Minho’s ridiculous rant off. He picks up his jacket from the back of the chair and pulls it on, zipping it up as he quickly packs his stuff away. Minho stands still, clearly confused.

Chan is just grabbing his sweatshirt off the bed when he turns to Minho.

Minho still doesn’t bother to look at him. 

“Look, what I said-”

Chan bites back the tears that form at the sound of Minho’s voice _again._

“I think you’ve said enough, Minho.” Chan whispers, before turning away and leaving the room, and then the apartment. 

Chan had completely forgotten that Seungmin was returning the same day. Sure he’d been mentally counting down the days, but generally when he was with Minho, all other things tended to fly out of his brain.

Well, that wouldn’t be a problem anymore. Chan wasn’t going to be spending any more time with that asshole. 

Seungmin is pulling something out of the fridge when Chan returns and envelopes him in a tight hug, burying his face into Seungmin’s neck. Seungmin smells slightly like travel, but he’s warm and soft and _safe_ and everything that Chan currently needs.

Seungmin laughs quietly when Chan doesn’t pull back even a few minutes later, and instead only latches on tighter.

“What’s this?” Seungmin coos, only slightly teasing. “Miss me that much?”

“Yeah actually.” Chan’s voice is muffled by Seungmin’s sweater, but Seungmin understands, because, well, Seungmin always does. 

Seungmin eventually manages to extract Chan away from him, only to hold him by the shoulders and peer into his face as if he’s examining him.

“You okay, hyung?” Seungmin asks. There’s worry in his tone and Chan silently curses himself for making Seungmin _worry_ when he just got back from an exhausting trip. He wants to make Seungmin as happy as Seungmin makes him. 

“Of course.” Chan plasters on a huge smile, and even he can feel how fake it is by the way it tugs at the edges. Still, he keeps it pasted onto his face whilst he helps Seungmin prepare dinner, and later sort out his laundry. Seungmin does not believe in leaving things for the following day, no matter how tired he is, and Chan always marvels at Seungmin’s inability to procrastinate. 

They sort out Seungmin’s bags and hoist his suitcase on top of the wardrobe; Seungmin teases Chan when he attempts to do it alone and ultimately cannot reach. 

Chan tells Seungmin of his adventures with Hyunjin and Seungmin is very enthusiastic, asking all sorts of questions and frowning in disapproval when Chan mentions how unsafe the whole building was.

“But we didn’t die!” Chan protests when Seungmin threatens to put a ban on his and Hyunjin’s adventures. 

“Didn’t, but could have.” Seungmin mutters, but he’s smiling.

This is easy. Laughing, joking with Seungmin. Seungmin is Chan’s best friend, his _brother_ when he thinks hard about it- which isn’t something he does often. Chan can’t even begin to imagine a life without him, and he wonders what the hell he was thinking when he stopped trusting Seungmin’s judgement. 

They’re seated on the couch in the evening, watching The Amazing World of Gumball and passing a tube of Pringles between themselves, when Chan turns to face Seungmin, hoping there’s enough sincerity in his voice when he speaks.

“Thank you.” He says. His voice shakes, but he keeps going. “For everything.” 

“Of course.” Seungmin responds, soft, like always. “Are you… are you _really_ okay, hyung?”

Chan huffs out a laugh, though there’s no joy or humour in it. It sounds sad, _tired_ even, and he has to really control himself not to cry in that moment. Chan can’t remember the last time he answered that question truthfully, though it seems to be one directed at him often. 

He remembers being asked by Hyunjin, by Seungmin before he left, and even by Changbin just before break. _Fine_ Chan had responded each time, because it’s easier to pretend that everything is fine when it’s not being said aloud. Everything will be fine until he admits it isn’t. 

“You were right.” Chan says after a silence. Seungmin hadn’t prodded any further, simply waited for Chan to gather his thoughts and string them into words and for that Chan is grateful. He’s grateful for many things Seungmin offers him; food, homework help, bad puns. But most of all, he’s grateful for Seungmin’s patience. 

“Hm?” Seungmin prompts, so slightly. Chan can back out if he wants to, he can say he’s tired, he won’t have to talk about it and Seungmin won’t ask. But Chan has no idea how much longer he can keep the mess of his life in a tangled heap inside his brain, alone, with no empathy. 

“Minho’s an ass.” Chan huffs out another laugh, again with no happiness interlinked. “You were right. He’s just- all he was _ever_ going to do was break my heart all over again.”

When the first tear dribbles down Chan’s cheek, Seungmin stops it before it can reach any further. The second tear falls against Seungmin’s soft sweater, and the third and fourth and anything that comes after that appear like waterfalls, all smushed against Seungmin’s chest.

 _This_ was what Chan had bottled up, ever since he left Minho’s apartment. The feeling of being called clingy, _too much,_ pretty much impossible to ever be with. Overbearing. Yet not enough.

Being angry with Minho just didn’t cut it, because Chan had always been the one to go back. He’d stepped foot into Minho’s apartment again, he’d been the one to seek Minho out for help with school, _he_ had kissed Minho first. Although Minho never pushed him away, he rarely initiated either. If Chan had been so upset with their agreement, why did he never put a stop to it himself? Was he really just as addicted to Minho, as Minho was to him? 

Chan knows that addictions never end in anything good. If Minho is a drug, then he was simply waiting for a day that it would become too much- _Minho_ would become too much- and he’d end up taking too much, overdosing on a boy that barely cared about him. 

“I- I had started to see Minho again,” Chan begins shakily. Seungmin hushes him, dragging his sweater paws across Chan’s cheeks. The material is soft, warm, and it makes Chan feel a little bit like tearing up all over again. 

“You think I don’t know hyung?” 

Chan blinks at him, mouth falling open a little. He must look a right mess, tears clinging to his lashes and eyes rimmed in red. 

“Hyung.” Seungmin smiles, taking Chan’s face in his hands. He squeezes Chan’s cheeks between his palms, and Chan whines, batting him away as he laughs. “Do you really think you _or I_ could ever not notice when one of us likes someone?”

He’s looking at Chan with such intensity that Chan isn’t quite sure what to do with it. He feels like he’s been given a single key to open a hundred different locks- impossible to figure out, but also not impossible at all.

It clicks all at once.

“Holy shit.” He murmurs, “You’re in love with Hyunjin.” 

Seungmin’s turns a little pink and Chan begins to wonder how the _fuck_ he missed out on all the hints. 

“I – uh,” Seungmin reaches into his pocket and pulls out a little box. Chan doesn’t think it’s the time for proposal jokes. 

The box is opened to reveal a long silver necklace chain with two pendants attached to the end. _Capture life_ one reads, the writing engraved around the edge of the circle. The other is smaller, a tiny camera. Chan holds it gently in his palm, fingers tracing the edge of the charms. 

“It’s so pretty.” He tells Seungmin. Seungmin smiles, still slightly pink as he runs a hand through his hair. 

“No thanks to _you,”_ Seungmin teases and Chan gives him a watery laugh, shoving at his shoulder. 

“Sorry, I’m sorry.” He grins, “I’m sure Hyunjin will love it.”

“Yeah.” Seungmin takes the necklace back into his own hands, running the chain through his fingers. “Now tell me what happened with Minho.”

They fall back into their natural rhythm. There’s a few days till school starts back up, and Chan is determined to be completely caught up with everything when he goes back. No more outstanding assignments, no more incomplete essays, and definitely no more bad grades. No more than he can help, anyway,

He’s sitting on the floor in the living room, laptop on the coffee table as he sorts through papers, trying to find which one was his final draft. He manages to pull it out under a stack, and looks up at his laptop, hoping to type it up, only to find his laptop screen blank.

Chan blinks. 

He taps at the keyboard, runs his fingers over the touchpad. Nothing. He pushes the power button. Still nothing. 

Chan sighs.

His laptop is dead.

He heaves himself off the floor, stretching out his limbs because he’s been sitting there since morning. His stomach had started growling about thirty minutes ago, but Seungmin had promised to return with food, so he hadn’t bothered to get anything. Though if Seungmin was going to take any longer, he should probably grab a snack.

Chan has his charger dangling from one arm and a snack bar in his left hand when Seungmin opens the door to their apartment. Chan doesn’t even notice Hyunjin standing behind him until they’re both taking off their shoes and Chan blinks, belatedly realising how he’s dressed in sweats and a pyjama shirt and is yet to take his daily shower. It takes him a few more minutes to remember that this is Hyunjin and _Seungmin_ who has definitely seen him naked on more than one occasion.

“Hey hyung,” Seungmin greets. His voice is a little off- caution perhaps, or something close to it. 

“Did you get food?” Chan asks, and Seungmin nods, holding up a takeout bag in his hand. Chan beams, stepping forward to retrieve it. And then he realises what’s in Seungmin’s other hand. 

It’s Hyunjin’s. 

“Oh shit,” Chan breathes, and then he’s grinning, perhaps even laughing a little as he rushes out various forms of congratulations. 

“It’s- it’s okay?” Hyunjin asks, and his voice has the same hint of something that Seungmin’s had previously. Chan knows what it is now. Worry. Apprehension. 

“It’s _more_ than okay.” Chan ruffles Hyunjin’s hair, only laughing when his best friend scowls at him. 

They manage to make their way to the kitchen table, food spread out in front of them. Seungmin shyly perches himself in Hyunjin’s lap, and Chan would tease them if they both weren’t so pink already. They both eat single-handedly, and Chan doesn’t even have to check to know that their pinkies are interlocked. 

“So, who do I give the break his heart and I’ll break your face talk to?” Chan asks, once he’s done devouring a bit of everything. Seungmin and Hyunjin had visited a new place, and unsure of what Chan would like, had pretty much brought home something from every part of the menu. Chan has no idea where Seungmin gets the money to constantly treat everyone he eats with. 

“Shut up.” Hyunjin grins, and throws a chip in Chan’s direction.

Chan is about to throw one back, in fact he’s all ready to initiate an entire food fight, when something around Hyunjin’s neck glints in the light. 

Chan sits back and smiles at his best friends.

This, really, is all he ever wants for them. Happiness. 

Nothing changes. Not really. They’re still Seungmin, Hyunjin and Chan who laugh at things that aren’t funny and bully each other for breathing.

Seungmin tells Hyunjin to stay the night and Chan makes as many ‘no closed doors’ jokes as he can until Hyunjin is sitting on top of him and tickling the life out of him. 

“I love you, hyung” Hyunjin says, still sitting on top of him. He’s no longer tickling, but Chan is still breathing heavily, hands held up in surrender. He wants to make a joke, perhaps a _don’t let Seungmin hear you say that_ but he stops himself, because Hyunjin is looking at him the way Chan looks at Seungmin sometimes- pure fondness, and complete gratitude for their friendship.

“I love you too, man.” Chan replies. He doesn’t try to sit up, but he does put his hands behind his head, and smiles softly. 

“Seungmin told me about Minho.” Hyunjin says after a moment. Seungmin is in the bathroom, washing up and getting ready for bed. He might have even _gone_ to bed, because Seungmin is nothing if not punctual. Hyunjin, much like Chan, finds comfort in the moonlight. “Sorry he’s an ass.”

Chan shrugs, unsure of what to say. _Me too?_

“It’s whatever.” He says. It isn’t whatever. Chan is still hurting, and when he’s alone, he wonders how Minho dated him for eight months only to tell him that he’s clingy and irritating. “I should be used to it.”

Hyunjin looks at him for a long moment, and he’s no longer wearing that gentle expression of fondness. He’s chewing on his bottom lip, and his eyes keep darting all over Chan’s face, like he’s fighting a mental battle.

“Just spill it Jinnie,” Chan laughs. Hyunjin doesn’t even have the decency to look ashamed, because he knows that Chan knows him like the back of his hand, the lines on his palms, the nails at the edge of his fingers. They know one another more than they know themselves sometimes, and it should sound scary but mostly it’s comforting. Like lending your soul to someone you trust. 

“You never did know about the bet, did you?” Hyunjin’s words are soft, perhaps to lessen the impact of the blow, but it makes Chan dizzy all the same. Hyunjin shakes his head and laughs softly. “Of course you didn’t.”

_“The what?”_

Hyunjin takes Chan by the hands then and holds them tightly, as if holding onto a lifeline. There’s such a determined look in his eyes, that Chan almost feels fearful. 

“Hyung,” He starts, “I’m _really_ sorry, but you have to know- I thought he told you.”

“Hyunjin.” Chan says slowly, “I have _no_ clue what the fuck you’re talking about.”

Hyunjin rolls off Chan’s stomach and releases his hands, and Chan belatedly realises that he’s distancing himself. Chan sits up, because the atmosphere has turned serious, and he doesn’t think it’s appropriate to keep lying on the living room floor. Hyunjin pulls his knees to his chest, as if he’s afraid of whatever he’s about to say.

“I really thought he told you.” Hyunjin says again, eyes fixed on a spot on the floor. “I thought you knew about the bet. I only realised you _didn’t_ when I made hints and you literally didn’t clock on. Like at all.”

Chan is starting to feel like he’d rather be anywhere else but here, 

“What. Bet. Hyunjin.” 

Hyunjin sighs, and he’s quiet for a moment. Chan is about to ask again, but then Hyunjin begins to speak once more and Chan clamps his lips shut. 

“Before- before you and Minho became a thing. You were both my friends, and I knew Minho hyung kind of had the hots for you. But like, he really just wanted to get in your pants. You had that…” Hyunjin trails off with a soft laugh, clearly recalling a fond memory. Chan can’t think of a single fond thing in this situation. “remember when you kept telling everyone you were ‘too busy’ to date.”

Chan frowns.

“I was.”

“Sure hyung.” Hyunjin smiles, but it looks awkward, so he allows it to fall and continues, “You had this whole _I’m too busy_ thing and Minho was pretty much just sleeping with anything that had a heartbeat, and I thought well… I knew you both pretty well and I thought you’d click if you’d just… give each other a chance. So I bet Minho that he couldn’t land a date with you, and I almost _won_ until he took you to that festival.”

Chan stills.

“You _knew_ about the-?”

“Yeah.” Hyunjin laughs softly again, but it sounds a lot more painful, like it could have been a sob. “I told you I’d been dropping hints.” He pauses, as if to say more, but then shakes his head and continues, “Anyway, you and Minho came back from that _so_ happy and when I asked Minho about the bet he’d… seemed to have forgotten about it? Hyung, it looked like he _genuinely_ liked you. Regardless of any kind of bet. And when I asked him he said that he’d told you about the bet but… but that I shouldn’t bring it up because it might upset you.” Hyunjin’s voice grows quiet, and the living room sits in silence for a few moments.

Chan has no idea what to do with this information. He wants to _scream,_ maybe throw a few things around, but he also wants to take a huge nap and never think about Minho ever again because really, all of that is over now. He doesn’t have to think about Minho, not if he doesn’t want to. 

“What was your end of the bet?” Chan asks, instead of anything else.

Hyunjin lifts his head, looking at Chan for the first time since he started. 

“My end?”

“Yeah.” Chan says, “What did you have to do if you lost the bet?”

Hyunjin smiles, a little sadly, and Chan almost regrets asking. Almost. 

“If Minho hyung didn’t succeed in getting a date with you… I had to ask Seungmin out.” 

This time, Chan lets out a laugh. It’s sharp, and way too loud in the tense atmosphere, but suddenly Chan _wants_ to make Hyunjin feel uncomfortable. He wants to strip away any happiness he currently feels and will ever feel in the future because what the _fuck_ has he done to Chan’s life. 

“You’re the absolute worst fucking person on this planet.” Chan bites.

“I know, I know, and I’m so, so sorry, but hyung,” Hyunjin sounds like he’s pleading and Chan almost doesn’t want to hear it, “I was only trying to look out for you, I _told_ Minho hyung to tell you about the bet and he told me he already did! I never would have let Minho date you as _just_ a bet-”

“But he did, didn’t he? That’s why he broke up with me right? Out of fucking nowhere? Because it was all just a bet to him?” 

“No, _listen_ to me.” Hyunjin is back at Chan’s side, and his hands are wavering like he wants to reach out and hold him but isn’t sure if he’s allowed to. _“I_ bet Minho that he _wouldn’t_ be able to date you. He won the bet when you said yes! He could have easily told me that you said no and I would have had to ask Seungmin out- don’t you _see?_ Hyung _wanted_ to lose the bet. Because he _liked_ you.” 

Chan isn’t sure what to think. All he knows is that Hyunjin would never intentionally hurt him, even if he has had some bad ideas, Hyunjin has never wanted anything but the best for him. He still does.

Chan narrows his eyes. 

“You didn’t choose to date Seungmin now because of…?”

The question is incomplete, but Hyunjin seems to catch on immediately.

“No! _No,_ never, I- honestly I completely forgot about the bet.” He sighs, “But me and Seungmin becoming like, official, it brought some things back and I just- I had to check. I’m sorry. Are you mad?”

And is Chan mad? About the situation, maybe. Perhaps if Hyunjin had told him all this a week ago, he’d be livid with anger. But at this point, he’s simply tired. He wants Minho to go away, yet he strangely, also wants to be as close to him as possible. He wants to yell in his face about the mess he’s caused, but all of that just sounds _really_ exhausting, and currently, all he really, truly wants is to be held.

“No.” He says honestly, “I’m not mad.”

Hyunjin smiles, genuinely, for the first time in the last hour and when he reaches forward to hold him, Chan allows it. 

Concentrating in class has never been a problem for Chan- even if understanding the material is difficult, it isn’t hard to _listen._ Chan has found himself, multiple times, making notes on a subject he has no clue about. He simply writes down whatever words come out of the professor’s mouth and makes sense of them later. Sure, sometimes none of the words make sense at all, but if he’s paying a hefty amount for this education, he may as well concentrate. 

The first day back after winter break, however, feels completely arbitrary. Chan feels like he’s been put in the middle of one of Jisung’s geology classes- unable to understand a word, no matter how hard he tries. He can’t even write down words that he hears, because to him, these words don’t sound like words at all. 

Chan recalls a time Jisung had attempted to explain what he’d learnt in class that day. He’d said words like _divergent boundary_ and _convection currents_ and Chan had almost fallen asleep. He feels a little like falling asleep right now too, in this music production class. He’s acutely aware of minor details around him, the professor talking non-stop at the front, the girl texting on her phone next to him. Minho. At the back, probably sitting up straight and taking in everything, but somehow managing to look like he’s not. 

Chan doesn’t _want_ to think about Minho. He wants to think about getting his grades up, and how there’s a dozen missed calls and unread texts sitting in his phone that make him feel guiltier every time he unlocks the device, but all he _can_ think about is Minho. 

When the class ends Chan doesn’t turn around like he so badly wants to, and instead makes his way to the front where the professor is clicking away at his computer. Chan waits for the chatter behind him to die down to almost nothing before approaching.

“Sir,” He says, always polite. “I have uh,” He pauses. He didn’t think this through. Did he even think of anything besides Minho today? Does he _ever_ think of anything besides-

“Chan.” His professor repeats, blinking at him. Chan thinks he might throw up. To his luck, the professor breaks out into a kind smile, nodding like he knows exactly what Chan had come for. “Is this about your grades?”

Chan nods, manners out of the window. 

“Yes I was… surprised to see…” He sighs, “Take a seat, Chan.” 

The professor peers at him over the top of his spectacle once Chan has sat down and Chan is starting to think about asking _any_ other professor about helping him boost his grades. But music production is _easy,_ he’s _good_ at this. 

“You know,” His professor starts, “I admit I wasn’t all too shocked to see the current state of your grades. You _did_ miss the entirety of the final semester for the previous year and whilst you are repeating most of these classes, well, it doesn’t seem like you’re keeping on top of it- are you?”

Chan shakes his head, unsure of how to respond. 

“There’s a project.” His professor continues, unfazed by his reticence, “That you missed, last year. It won’t be repeated this year, but for _you,_ for extra credit, I think you could give it a shot.”

Chan sits up a little straighter.

“You’ll only have this second quarter to complete it, of course. Other students had double that time but well, you won’t have that advantage. If you can complete the project, _and_ get a good score on it, then that would definitely boost your grade. In this class, of course.”

Chan is nodding enthusiastically before his professor has even finished speaking, because _yes,_ yes he can do extra work, Chan fucking _lives_ for extra music production work, even if it means stress and missed meals and late nights. Chan will do it, because he _can._

“Very well.” His professor is wearing that kind smile again, the type strangers wear when you tell them to have a good day. “I will have the details emailed to you.”

Chan stands and tips his head in a slight bow, hoping it will get across all the gratitude he’s feeling, before rushing out of the room. 

Chan is accustomed to cramming. He’s done it during midterms week, finals week, he’s even done it for tests that he forgot about until there was only an hour left for him to study. So yes, Chan has crammed before. He’s worked his ass off, plenty of times. But none of that compares to how he throws himself into this project, in the two weeks that follow.

Chan is so immersed in his work, he doesn’t think his brain has had a single thought outside of music production within the last fortnight. Chan is pretty sure he was talking about MIDI keyboards in his sleep, three nights ago. 

“Dude, you need to chill.” Changbin laughs, when Chan almost has a breakdown over a certain track.

Chan sighs, and passes his headphones over when Changbin gestures for them.

“The guitar is way too boxy.” He mutters. He _knows_ he’s being picky, but he’s also determined to get something close to a perfect score on this project. Flunking on assignments and recent essays had been something he caused himself, and the least he could do is try and fix it. He was lucky enough to have friends like Changbin who is some kind of musical prodigy (though he’d deny that title), and had offered to help Chan with the project. 

“Here.” Chan stops fucking around on his phone for a moment to look at Changbin, who is offering him his Pringles tin.

Chan takes a bunch, and then throws his friend a confused look.

 _“Primero comemos, luego tomas las críticas.”_ Changbin says. When Chan simply continues to stare, Changbin laughs. _“First we eat, then you take the criticism.”_

“Okay.” Chan responds, monotone. “Now tell me the criticism.”

 _“Eat.”_ Changbin insists, and he pushes Chan’s hand into his mouth, Pringles spilling over the floor as well as a few ending up in his mouth. 

_“Changbin!”_ Chan yells out, and Changbin laughs, barely batting an eye at the mess he’s made on the floor. _The studio_ floor. Which does not belong to either of them. “You’re a menace.”

“Yeah, yeah.” Changbin says, but he’s still laughing. “Okay, so I think it’s not _that_ boxy. But you could definitely cut out some-”

He’s cut off by Chan’s phone going off seven times in a row. Changbin blinks, like he can’t quite process what just happened.

“Dude.” Changbin says, _“Please_ answer whoever the fuck that is. They haven’t quit texting you since we started.”

“It’s not the same person.” Chan says quickly, defensively. He turns his phone face down, and nods at Changbin to continue. “It’s not important,” he reassures him.

Changbin doesn’t look completely convinced, but he entertains Chan and continues for another few minutes until Chan’s phone goes off again.

 _“Dude.”_ He groans, and he’s clearly annoyed. Before Chan can reach out to silence the device, Changbin is acting faster, and he takes the phone in his own grip, eyeing the screen. “Kevin?” He reads aloud. He peers at Chan over (his own!) phone screen, “Who the hell is Kevin?” 

_“What the fuck, Changbin.”_ Chan seethes, and stands from his chair, snatching the phone back. He’s _livid._ Whether it’s because of the sound of that name, or because of the fact that Changbin just picked up _his_ phone and decided to snoop through it, he isn’t sure. He ignores the fact that they’re _friends,_ and he’s definitely snooped through Changbin’s phone- more than once. 

“Hyung- it was a joke-” Changbin is trying to explain, but whatever the explanation is, Chan doesn’t want to stick around to hear it. 

He snaps his laptop shut and unplugs the headphones, before shoving it all into his bag. 

“I have to go.” 

Chan ignores Changbin calling after him and leaves quickly, relieved to find that Changbin at least has the decency not to follow.

He leans against the door, thoughts racing. He ponders over going back inside, maybe apologise to Changbin for freaking out. Maybe he won’t even have to explain. Changbin is pretty phlegmatic, he’d probably be up for laughing about it and then getting back to business. Chan _knows_ this. He and Changbin have been friends for way too long to argue about something this stupid.

His hand is just pushing against the door when his phone rings, and Chan quickly takes a step back, feeling a little on the verge of throwing his stupid phone against the wall. 

He looks at the ID. _Kevin._ Without thinking twice, Chan quickly hits a button.

 _Are you sure you want to block this caller?_ The screen reads.

“Yes.” Chan mutters as he hits the same button. The call stops immediately. Chan takes one last look at the closed studio door and decides he’s way too tired to speak to anyone, and so turns on his heel and continues on his way. 

  
  


“Chan?”

Chan removes a single Airpod.

“Yeah?” He calls back. When there’s no answer, he simply slips his Airpods back in, convinced that he may have just imagined it.

He’s really close to finishing up with his project, in fact he _has_ finished- but he’s a perfectionist and so he’d left the last few days before the deadline to touch up on last minute things- and is currently using his free shift at the dessert parlour to work. 

Chan had hesitantly apologised to Changbin when walking in that morning, and carefree, serene Changbin had simply thrown him a smile and nodded and that was that. No more bad blood between them. 

“Chan!” Gyuri rushes into the back, a little haphazardly. On a normal day, Chan would offer to be useful even during his break, but today, he barely notices how ridiculously busy the parlour seems to be. “Didn’t you hear me calling you?”

“I uh- no.” Chan says, figuring that’s easier than _yeah but I kind of ignored it._ “What’s up?”

Gyuri looks slightly awkward then, shifting from one foot to another before she pulls a face and opens her mouth,

“Someone at the front wants to see you.”

“Me? I’m not on-”

“Yeah, I know, but they’re being kind of- pushy. Can you just come out? I don’t feel like starting anything. He looks intimidating.” 

Chan sighs as he closes his laptop and puts his Airpods back in their case. He supposes he can use a two minute break to stretch his legs. 

He follows Gyuri to the front, who nods towards a figure, dressed in red standing by the corner of the counter. 

Minho.

Chan isn’t sure what exactly causes his blood to boil at the sight of Minho. It isn’t like all the other times, when seeing Minho had made him angry because he felt that Minho had no right to be anywhere near him. Minho has every right to be in a public dessert parlour, but Chan just doesn’t think he can deal with this right now. 

He has a project due in three days, as well as guilt eating up inside of him for blocking an innocent caller and for being extra snappy at his friends, through no fault of their own. On top of all that there’s _Minho,_ because Chan is pretty convinced that if he’s ever stressing over anything in his life, Minho will always be somewhere in that mix.

“Please.” Chan says lowly as he approaches, “Fuck off. I really don’t have time for you right now.” 

Minho looks slightly startled at the blunt greeting, but he recovers quickly, digging his hands deep into his pockets and looking at Chan- a little imploringly. 

“Can you just hear me out, please? I want to-”

“Look.” Chan holds up a hand, effectively cutting Minho off. “If you’re going to tell me about the bet then don’t bother, I already know. I really don’t want to hear anything you have to say.” 

Minho’s jaw falls open,

“How do you know about the bet?” And Chan scoffs because _of course_ that’s all Minho cares about. Minho doesn’t care that he’s potentially hurt, there isn’t even an _apology,_ he just wants to know how and why Chan found out and Chan doesn’t think he can take another second of Minho’s bullshit. 

He’s about to open his mouth, maybe tell Minho to fuck off again, until he realises that they’re starting to garner some attention from the customers. Chan’s eyes drift to where Gyuri stands. She gives him a look. 

Chan takes a deep breath. Gyuri doesn’t deserve this. 

He steps back, exhausted.

“Just go, Minho.” 

Minho looks like he’s about to protest or even start something. Chan holds his breath. Minho backs away.

“Yeah,” He says, “Sorry I came.”

When he turns and leaves, Chan finds that, for the first time, he can only feel pure relief over Minho’s retreating figure. 

Chan isn’t sure why his hand shakes when he tries to submit his project. It’s _done, complete,_ yet his fingers are feeling so clumsy he misses the ‘submit’ button like three times in a row. He has no idea what he’s doing. He has half a mind to go into Seungmin’s room and ask him to do it for him. 

The little countdown in the corner of the screen eventually makes him stop pacing around his room and actually submit the stupid thing.

 _Project… submitted!_ A popup exclaims. Chan slumps against his chair with a sigh. 

He isn’t quite sure how he’s feeling. Submitting his project was just one thing in a long list of worries. If anything, it was at the bottom of the list- though Chan always had a habit of dealing with the least important things first until the more important things would completely blow up. 

There’s still a blocked caller in his phone, a confused friend in another country, and a possibly confused ex in this one. Chan feels like he’s trying to look into a mirror covered in a dozen smears, and he doesn’t have enough Windex to clean it all up with.

He wonders if he’ll ever be able to see his full reflection again.

Chan thinks back to a few days ago, when he had told Minho to get lost at the parlour- or something along those lines. He can’t remember exactly what he had said to him, all he knows is that it wasn’t particularly pleasant. 

Seeing Minho that day had felt like a tower of bricks crashing down onto him, though looking back at it now, it was his own fault for not stacking the tower properly in the first place. Maybe he should have listened to whatever Minho had to say. The last time he’d been at Minho’s home he _had_ demanded an explanation. Sure, Minho had been a little late, but perhaps he’d only come to give Chan what he’d asked for. 

And Chan, well, Chan had told him to fuck off. 

All of a sudden, Chan feels the overwhelming need to not be alone. He’s afraid of his thoughts, afraid of what his mind is capable of if left alone for too long. 

He pulls out his phone, only feeling slightly guilty at how much he has to scroll to get to Minho’s contact. He pulls up their chat and his fingers hover over the keyboard for a few seconds before he types out the message and hits send on it. 

_To:_ **_Minho_ ** **_  
_ ** _Can we talk?_

Chan clicks his phone shut and plugs it into charge on the nightstand, eyes sweeping over the mess that he’s left there. There’s a tube of Pringles, most likely Seungmin’s, and a ridiculous amount of pens and pencils. Chan’s right Airpod is there too- he had dropped the left one behind his bed a few hours back and, too tired to move his bed and look for it, had continued to work with just the one. 

He takes one last look at the haphazardness of his room and then shifts out of the door, standing in the dark hallway, feeling almost uncertain of where to go.

Truthfully, he wants to crawl into Minho’s arms. Minho’s arms that are safe and warm, that were once always available to him after long days. Minho always seemed to know when Chan had submitted big projects, or assignments that had drained him of all his energy. Even when Chan hadn’t mentioned a deadline, Minho would always somehow just _know._ And those were the best days, when Chan would hit submit and then crawl under his boyfriend’s blankets where he’d be waiting, with open arms and copious kisses. 

There was a game Minho used to play with him, where he’d make Chan close his eyes and make him guess which part of his face Minho was looking at. If Chan got it right, he’d get a kiss in that place, and if not- well, Minho usually kissed him somewhere anyway. Chan misses Minho’s kisses. 

“Hey,” Seungmin calls gently, when Chan pads into his room. He’s propped up against what looks like a dozen pillows, his book in his lap, and Chan almost feels bad for disturbing him, until Seungmin pats the space next to him. 

Seungmin’s bed is a lot larger than Chan’s, possibly because Seungmin sleeps all sprawled out and crazy, unlike Chan who curls up into a ball and doesn’t budge the entire night. Despite his huge bed, Chan sometimes hears Seungmin fall to the floor with a thump in the middle of the night somehow. 

“You okay, hyung?” Seungmin asks once Chan has climbed under the covers with him. He bookmarks his page and places the novel on his nightstand. Chan recognises it as the same dystopian thriller that Hyunjin had read on the train journey to Daejeon, not too long ago. This small fact sparks something warm and fond within Chan’s chest. 

“I’m okay.” Chan mumbles. He isn’t sure how to say _I miss my ex who I wish wasn’t my ex_ without sounding completely pathetic, so when Seungmin asks if he’s sure he simply stays quiet. 

Seungmin begins to run a hand through his hair, and Chan slips further under the covers until his head is level with Seungmin’s chest, close enough to rest just under his collarbones. 

Seungmin used to do this a lot when Minho first broke up with Chan. Not used to sleeping alone, Chan would slip into Seungmin’s bed often and Seungmin would wordlessly card his fingers through Chan’s curls, eventually helping him drift off to sleep. 

It’s different now. Chan isn’t as sad as he was back then, he doesn’t feel like he’s got a gaping hole in his heart that will never be filled. He doesn’t feel completely whole, but it feels a little like something that will pass, perhaps soon. Maybe, it even feels fixable. 

Chan doesn’t notice that there’s tears falling until Seungmin wipes at his cheek, and gently shushes him.

“Oh, sorry,” Chan whispers, forcing out a laugh. It sounds just as embarrassed as he feels. “I don’t know why I’m crying.”

Seungmin hums in thought, and something tells Chan that _he_ probably knows why Chan is crying. That’s the thing about Seungmin, he always knows more than he lets on. If Seungmin constantly mentioned everything that he knew, Chan doesn’t think there’d ever be a moment where Seungmin isn’t speaking. The fact that Seungmin is shy and reserved is a blessing for everyone. 

“You deserve so much happiness, hyung.” Seungmin says after a while. Chan notices that he’s no longer crying, and he briefly wonders if Seungmin had been waiting for him to stop. Seungmin isn’t even looking at him, but he probably knew Chan had stopped anyway. “You deserve to be happy, always.” He pauses, “But you need to let people make you happy. And sometimes- well- it’s going to hurt.” Seungmin looks at him then, and somehow his words make so much sense yet also, no sense at all. “Please let yourself be happy.”

Chan’s vision blurs again, perhaps for a different reason he doesn’t know (Seungmin probably does).

“I’ll try.” He mumbles into Seungmin’s soft sweater. Seungmin doesn’t say any more after that, and Chan falls asleep to the quiet sound of pages turning and nimble fingers in his hair. 

\--

Chan thinks it’s impossible for him to count the amount of times he’s had his breath taken away by Minho’s beauty. There’s a few instances, however, that truly stand out, like the first time Chan had ever spoken to him, the first time Minho had fallen apart underneath him, the first time Chan had seen him after spending eight months abroad.

Chan thinks that Minho, sitting on a park bench under the winter sun in the shade of a pine tree could be added to that list. 

Minho’s hair is still orange, though only his bangs are visible, the rest of his head covered in a dark blue beanie. He’s dressed in black jeans and a bright blue varsity jacket, and Chan feels his mouth dry up at just how _pretty_ his ex-boyfriend is. 

Chan takes a good few minutes convincing himself that turning around and walking away would be the worst possible thing he could do right now, and so finally he takes a deep breath and takes the space next to Minho on the bench.

“Hey,” He says, voice soft. 

Minho pockets his phone and turns to look at Chan, a look of slight surprise on his face, like he wasn’t actually expecting him to show.

“I think that’s the nicest way you’ve ever greeted me.” Minho says in response.

Chan is stunned for a few seconds before he shakes his head, laughing a little. It’s so _Minho_ to not reply with a ‘hello.’ 

“You didn’t deserve pleasantries all the other times.” Chan teases and Minho nods along in agreement.

“Yeah, you’re right.” He says easily. 

“You agree you were horrible?” Chan finds himself asking and Minho shakes his head, looking conflicted for a moment. Chan is afraid he’s gone too far once more, though when their eyes meet again, Minho doesn’t look angry. 

“I didn’t mean to be.” He says eventually. “I was surprised when you texted me yesterday. I wasn’t very nice to you… recently. Or, ever.”

Chan sighs, and he hopes that the way he blinks looks more like fighting off the cold rather than willing away tears.

“Why,” He croaks, “Why were you so cruel?”

“Chan hyung…” Minho’s voice is small, timid, and the tone resembles something familiar that Chan can’t quite put his finger on. “Do you know why I broke up with you? _Really?”_

“Because I was too clingy?” Chan asks, hoping his voice doesn’t waver.

“God,” Minho chokes out, “That was a lie. I shouldn’t have said that.” There’s a pause, and it stretches on for so long that Chan begins to feel almost impatient. He wonders if Minho had agreed to meet him just to punch at his ego a little more. 

“I fell in love with you, Chan.”

Chan’s gaze flicks back up, startled at the confession. Minho _what?_

“I- you know, but it started as a bet and I thought it would be over long before anything that deep could happen. We started as friends with benefits and I thought it’d end there, but then the bet happened and I thought- I thought we’d break up in a few weeks, but we just _didn’t,_ and I _couldn’t,_ because it _hurt_ to think about not having you, and then,” He pauses, and takes in a huge breath and Chan thinks perhaps he’s trying not to cry, “and then Hyunjin asked about the bet and I told him well, I told him that you knew and not to bring it up because really, I just couldn’t stand to see you upset and it felt easier that way, but then- fuck. You were just so- _so_ sweet and nice and funny, and god, you’re so fucking humble and overall _perfect,_ and I’m this _mess.”_

Minho looks at him then, and Chan is shocked to see unshed tears clinging to his eyelashes, as well as a look of complete panic written all over his features. Clearly he’s said more than he meant to.

Still, Minho continues. 

“And then, well, I was so damn scared because sure you were dating me but there was no way you could be _in love_ with me, and it was _just supposed to be a bet,_ so- so I broke up with you. Out of nowhere. Like a- like a fucking heathen.”

Chan isn’t sure why that makes him smile. It isn’t often that Minho directs insults at himself.

“I’m glad you realise.” Chan says quietly, “That you’re a heathen.”

Minho must be still very deep in his thoughts, because he shoots Chan a look of complete befuddlement, before shaking his head, his own smile small, but very much present.

“And you still have selective hearing.” He says, though it barely comes across as teasing. He pauses, and Chan can tell he wants to say more, so he opts to keep his mouth shut. Chan wants to reach across, maybe hold Minho’s hand or put an arm around his shoulders, but he also doesn’t want to be the one to offer comfort right now. 

“I tried to reach out.” Minho eventually continues, not reluctantly. “I wanted to fix things. Maybe even explain. But you left, kind of fast-”

“Two weeks.” Chan cuts in, “I left for Canada two _weeks_ after we broke up, Minho.” 

Minho nods gravely, like this is another mistake in a long list of them, another thing he perhaps regrets and reacted too late on. 

“I tried to get your number, after you left.” Minho says. He’s not looking at Chan as he speaks anymore, and Chan finds that he’s secretly glad. “Your regular one wasn’t working anymore, and whenever I asked Seungmin- well,” Minho huffs out a laugh, “He pretty much told me to get lost.” He shakes his head and Chan bites back at saying something like _you deserved it._ “Don’t be mad at him,” Minho says quickly, “He was only looking out for you.”

Chan almost feels offended.

“I could _never_ be mad at Seungmin.” 

“Yeah,” Minho laughs again, and it occurs to Chan that from all the things Minho just told him, it’s only Seungmin he’d gotten defensive over. “No one could be mad at Seungmin.”

“No,” Chan agrees, “No one.”

“I tried to fix things, you know.” Minho sighs after a moment of silence, “When you came back. I tried to make it okay again.”

Chan thinks back to how Minho had attempted conversation every chance he got when he came back to Korea. How Minho had acted like they hadn’t broken up eight months ago, and in fact were still close friends.

Something clicks, and Chan almost chokes when he realises-

“Was that your way of apologising?” He asks, hoping against hope that he’s completely wrong about this, “Acting like you didn’t fuck up?”

Minho bites his bottom lip, and Chan thinks it’s been confirmed before Minho even verbalises it. 

“I thought being normal would make it- normal.” He admits. 

“You realise, right? How that was _really fucking dumb_ of you?”

Minho nods glumly. 

“Yeah.” He says, “Sorry for making you uncomfortable. I know I was probably the last person you wanted to speak to once you got back.”

Chan shakes his head, unsure of what to say. Forgiving Minho would be so easy after getting the explanation he’d asked for. But this _explanation_ is something far beyond what he expected. He still hasn’t stopped thinking about the fact that Minho fell in love with him and freaked out so bad that he broke up with him. 

“When I was in Canada,” Chan starts slowly, “I met a boy.” Minho’s head snaps up at this, and Chan averts his gaze. He doesn’t want to get distracted. “His name was Kevin. And he was- he was great, Min. He was pretty much my tour guide, and then he eventually- well, we started hooking up. But it wasn’t anything more- we agreed that neither of us felt like _that._ Before I left, I promised to stay in touch, to stay friends.” Chan isn’t sure how to continue without feeling thoroughly embarrassed, so he places his head in his hands, blocking out everything from his vision. “Kevin, he- he’s been calling, like a lot. And I haven’t answered any of his texts, or his calls or- fuck- as far he’s concerned I didn’t even _make it_ home.” Chan lifts his head but doesn’t turn back to look at Minho, and instead fixes his gaze on the empty field in front of them. “I’m so scared, Minho. I’m so scared of anything that resembles how we started.”

It seems to click within Minho’s head, the mirroring of Kevin and Chan’s relationship with their own, as he turns to Chan with sad eyes.

“I’m sorry.” Minho says softly, “I’m sorry for putting you through everything that I did. I’m sorry for how hard you find it to trust, now. But- but if you’re willing, well, I never fell _out_ of love with you, Chan. Not how I thought I would. How I tried to. And I don’t think there’s any point in running from something that’s clearly never going away.”

Chan nods along. As much as he hates to admit it, his best days were the ones with Minho. The best parts of his life were the parts with Minho. Even now, sitting and talking to Minho, shedding tears and lightly teasing is an interaction that Chan wouldn’t trade for the world. Perhaps they are better together, than apart. 

“We’re so fucked up.” Chan laughs, watery and slightly choked out. Minho nods along, brushing the back of his hand over his cheek. 

“Yeah.” He says, “Yeah we are.”

“You have to know,” Minho says slowly, cautiously, like he’s trying to convince Chan not to run away again, “When you came back, and we started, you know, hooking up again. You didn’t push me away, not afterwards anyway. I thought you wanted to be with me again, just as much as I wanted to be with you. But there was so much- so much stuff. In my head. It was hard to directly say it, and to ask you.”

Chan raises an eyebrow,

“I _kissed_ you Minho. I didn’t ask you to be my _boyfriend.”_

“I know! I know, I know, but it just- that’s pretty similar, isn’t it?”

Chan sighs,

“I don’t know. I’ve never kissed my ex before.”

“Yeah,” Minho mutters, “Me neither.” He fidgets for a moment, “I’m sorry. For everything. For it all. For calling you clingy, when you’re the best thing that ever happened to me, for freaking out over loving you.” 

“Why did you do that?” Chan mutters. He looks away again, kicking at the gravel by his feet. “Do you really think I’m- too much?”

“No.” Minho sighs, and Chan can tell he’s looking at him without even looking back, “I was just- running. From something that I was too scared to admit to myself. And in hiding from myself well, I ended up hurting you with words I _never_ should have said. You’re perfect Chan, but falling in love- it scared me so much.”

“So was loving me really such a bad thing?” Chan asks. The question has been on his mind ever since Minho blurted out the confession, and whilst it feels like insecurities simply itching at his skin, he also needs an answer. 

“No,” Minho reaches out, taking Chan’s cold hands in his own warm ones. “I was -am- so _lucky_ to have the privilege of loving you, Channie, those months we were together- they were literally the best moments of my life. Please, don’t even doubt for a second that I regret being with you.”

Chan wants to fold his fingers over Minho’s, he wants to hug him tightly and he also wants to shove him a little. He does nothing, and instead nods a little. All this information is making him feel tired. 

“If we do this,” he starts, “again. Then we need to do it slowly. And when I say slow, I mean like- _slow.”_

Minho nods along quickly, squeezing Chan’s fingers with his own,

“Anything you want.” He says, “Just- just let me love you. Again. Properly this time.”

Chan doesn’t respond, but he feels like the way he squeezes Minho’s fingers back is enough of a response. One that doesn’t need words. 

\--

“Cookie dough and two cherry sundaes!” Chan calls behind him. There’s a scuffle amongst the usual clanging of utensils, before Changbin pokes his head out of the back,

“White chocolate or milk?”

Chan turns back to the customer, a young girl with two pigtails in her hair. She’s clutching the exact amount of cash in her little purse and looking about three different types of nervous. Chan smiles softly,

“Would you like the cookie dough milk chocolate or white?”

The girl looks slightly stunned, clearly bewildered at the fact that she has to make _more_ decisions. Chan had already witnessed her stuttering over whether she wanted a cherry or banana sundae. 

“I uh-” She pauses, and Chan leans forward on the counter, dropping his customer service face and instead tilting his head a little in what Seungmin calls his ‘puppy-dog look.’ The only reason Seungmin knows it is because Chan has it reserved especially for when Seungmin gets stressed over mundane things. 

“I recommend the milk chocolate.” He tells her honestly, “It’s the best.”

The girl seems to relax a little then, even visibly exhaling as Chan moves back. 

“I’ll get milk then.” She smiles. Chan nods, smiling back as he turns to Changbin.

“Milk.” He confirms. He’s about to take his place at the counter once more when movement by the door makes him pause. He thinks for a moment before grabbing Changbin by the arm. “Is Gyuri in there? I want to take my break.”

Changbin’s eyes trail over the store, always one step ahead of Chan, and then avert back to him. 

“Yeah.” He smirks, “I’ll tell her.”

Chan doesn’t have time to flip him off like he wants to, because he disappears into the back room. Instead, Chan throws his apron at Changbin’s retreating figure before grabbing a cup and spooning some mint chocolate ice cream into it.

He makes his way through the bustling parlour, to the table at the back, where Minho sits, attention on his phone.

“Hey,” Chan says, slipping into the seat opposite him. He nudges forward the cup of ice cream when Minho looks up, his expression softening at the sight of it.

“Woah, for me?”

“Well I’m not eating that abomination.” Chan grins, wrinkling his nose. 

“Mint chocolate is _good.”_ Minho defends as he digs the small plastic spoon into the cup, “You’re just uncultured.” 

“No,” Chan returns easily, “You’re just disgusting.”

“You wound me.” Minho says, sounding barely affected by Chan’s attack on his ice-cream choices. “When do you get off?”

Chan raises an eyebrow,

“I’m working till evening. Why?”

Minho shrugs, 

“Just… thought we could do something.” There’s a pause in which there’s no noise between them aside from the scrape of Minho’s spoon across the bottom of his paper cup. People talk around them, children cry and Chan’s colleagues shout to one another over the commotion of their customers, but Chan doesn’t pay attention to any of it. “I had a lovely little run in with Seungmin after class.” Minho says, “He was picking Hyunjin up. When did they become a thing?”

“Ah,” Chan laughs, “Not long ago.”

“That’s good.” Minho nods, “Good for them.”

“What did Seungmin say?” Chan asks, biting his lower lip. 

“A lot.” Minho grins and looks up at Chan through his fringe that’s falling into his eyes. His hair is still orange, but it’s fading, less vibrant. 

“I’d apologise on his behalf.” Chan grins, “But you probably deserved it.”

“How do you know he said bad things?”

“When has Seungmin ever said _good_ things to you?”

“He complimented my dancing! Once!”

 _“Once.”_ Chan teases, and he’s expecting it when Minho reaches across the table to swat at his arm.

“Don’t be mean to me.” He pouts, “I think I’ve faced enough of that today.”

“Aw.” Chan’s tone is mocking, but he puts his hand over Minho’s, where it still rests on his arm. “What did he say to you?” 

“Nothing… that bad. Just a lot of threats. And then, well,” Minho pauses, eyes glued to the table top, “He said _I’m glad you two are okay again, dumb fuck.”_

Chan chokes. 

“Did you _really_ have to,” Chan whines for the sixth time that evening.

Hyunjin is still giggling as Seungmin continues to look at Chan like he’s never done anything wrong in his life.

“Of course I had to.” Seungmin says. He’s standing by the stove, throwing pasta into a pot of boiling water. Chan had offered to help but Seungmin had shooed him away and told him to take a shower, telling him he smelt like sugar and other diabetic ingredients. 

“You’re so _embarrassing,_ Min.” Chan groans. He still hasn’t taken the shower that Seungmin demanded he take fifteen minutes ago. He has a few things to say to Seungmin first. His shower can wait.

“I’m not embarrassing! I bet _you_ never called him out for being a dumb fuck.”

“He’s not a-”

“Oh, don’t hyung.” Hyunjin cuts in, “Don’t even say Minho isn’t a dumb fuck.”

“I thought you guys were friends.” Chan sighs.

“We are.” Hyunjin agrees, “I’m friends with a dumb fuck.”

Seungmin looks horribly smug, with his dumb pot of pasta and Chan wishes he had something to throw at him. 

“If I knew that you two dating would include being ganged up on I would have put a stop to it.”

Hyunjin smiles, stretching out on the couch like an overgrown cat. He’s looking at Seungmin like he personally hung the stars in the sky and causes each one to shine every night. 

“I think you should be more concerned about _your_ dating life than ours.” Hyunjin says, wrapping his entire six foot frame around one of the couch cushions. 

“What-?”

“Are you and Minho dating now or what?” Seungmin asks, switching off the stove. “Like, what, is he your boyfriend? You’re not still doing the friends with benefits thing, are you?”

“No!” Chan says, too fast. He hasn’t kissed Minho since that time at his apartment, which he’s trying _not_ to think about because it isn’t a great memory for him. He sighs when he notices that he still has Seungmin and Hyunjin’s attention on him. “We’re taking it slow.”

To Chan’s surprise, both of his friends burst into laughter. Seungmin leans against the counter for support, and Hyunjin laughs so hard he rolls onto the floor.

 _“What?”_ He says, confused.

“Slow?” Seungmin repeats, giggles ceasing slightly, “Aren’t you doing this all backwards?”

“Will you get married and _then_ get engaged?” Hyunjin teases, and Chan kicks at his lanky figure on the floor, immediately regretting it when Seungmin stops laughing to glare at him. 

“Don’t hit him.” 

Chan kicks Hyunjin again.

 _“Hyung.”_ Seungmin whines, looking a lot more hurt than Hyunjin is. Hyunjin is still giggling on the floor. “You better go take your shower before I let Hyunjin eat all this pasta.”

Chan knows that Seungmin is petty enough to actually do that, so he backs out of the living room quickly.

Chan is drying his hair when his phone rings. He has no idea who could be calling him at this time, considering both Seungmin and Hyunjin are home (Chan can hear them _still_ giggling in the living room.)

“Hello?” He swipes at his lock screen without checking the ID. 

“Channie,” Minho’s voice floats cheerfully through the other end, and Chan finds himself smiling on instinct. “Do you wanna go somewhere with me?”

Chan frowns, 

“Right now?” 

“Yeah.” Minho drawls.

Chan stills. It’s a Wednesday night. 

“I’m _joking,_ baby.” Minho cackles on the other end. “This weekend!”

The pet name seems to have slipped out without him realising, because he continues rambling on about a place he wants to visit and it would be cool if Chan could come along.

“Yeah I’ll uh, get someone to cover my shifts.” Chan says, barely keeping up with anything Minho just said.

“Awesome, pack for an overnight stay. I’ll pick you up Saturday morning.” Minho says before hanging up. 

Chan has no idea what he just agreed to. 

Saturday comes faster than expected. Chan understands why Minho had called and asked him on Wednesday, and that’s because he physically does not see Minho until Saturday morning. Hyunjin mentions something about dance practise killing them, but Chan thinks it may also have something to do with Minho giving him the space he had asked for. It’s considerate, but by the time Friday evening rolls around, Chan is starting to miss him. 

“That’s a shit load of stuff.” Seungmin says, leaning in the doorway of Chan’s room, on Friday evening. He’d been awfully happy when Chan had told him about his plans to go away for the weekend and Chan feels it has less to do with the fact that Minho and Chan are starting to get their shit together and more to do with being able to spend a whole forty-eight hours with Hyunjin, alone. 

“I’m not taking all of it.” Chan sighs, looking at the clothes strewn over his bed. There are several shirts as well as three pairs of jeans and a few pairs of shorts. “I have no idea what the weather will be like.”

“Sure.” Seungmin smirks. He comes over and takes a seat next to the pile of clothes on the edge of the bed, running his hand over the creases in one of the shirts. “You’re indecisive because of the _weather.”_

“Shut up.” Chan picks up the closest thing he can find and throws it at Seungmin. It’s underwear. 

_“Hyung,”_ Seungmin groans, picking up the boxers with two fingers like they carry a deadly disease. Chan rolls his eyes.

“They’re clean, dumbass.” He says, catching them when Seungmin flings them back. Chan neatly folds up the garment and places it at the bottom of his bag.

“Whatever.” Seungmin stands, and when he doesn’t move to leave immediately, Chan looks up at him.

“What?” he asks, suspicious.

“Nothing.” Seungmin smiles sweetly, “Do you want your farewell gift now?”

“My-?” Before Chan can finish his question Seungmin is throwing a small box at him, his smile somehow turning from cheeky to downright _evil._

Chan picks up the box that had fallen just short of his left knee. He drops it immediately.

_“Seungmin what the fuck,”_

“Stay safe, hyung!” Seungmin cackles, and then runs from the room before Chan can stand up and yell at him to take his own advice. 

Minho picks Chan up at eleven on the dot. Chan had been awake since seven, and it must show, because Minho blinks at him a few times when he slips into the passenger seat of the car.

“Are you okay, hyung?” Minho asks, pulling out of his parking spot. Chan nods, tiredness starting to catch up to him now that he’s sat down. He’d awoken early to study as well as finish off the few bits and pieces of homework that needed completing before the end of the weekend. He didn’t want to risk a replay of the Daejeon festival he’d attended with Hyunjin.

“Fine,” Chan says, “just tired. Where are we going, by the way?”

Minho grins, and the way his lips quirk upwards and his little dimples pop out remind Chan of a cat.

“You’ll see. It’s just under a two hour drive, you can catch some sleep if you like.”

Chan tries to stay awake, he really does. He doesn’t want to leave Minho in silence for a full two hours, but the lull of the radio accompanied with Minho’s soft humming is enough to eventually coax him into a dreamless sleep.

The hotel that Minho booked is a lot fancier than Hyunjin’s two-star booking. The room consists of a large bed in the middle, and a lovely view of the town from the high rise windows. The en suite bathroom has a cute collection of various soaps and shampoos that Chan knows he won’t be using, though it brings a smile to his face when Minho excitedly smells each one and comments on the scent. There’s a large wardrobe with sliding doors, a little extravagant for a one night stay, but Minho only blushes when Chan points this out.

“I hope you don’t mind that there’s only one bed.” Minho says, a little sheepishly as he sits on the edge of it. “I know you said you wanted to take it slow but…”

The bed is rather large, in fact, even if Chan did want to sleep far away from Minho he’s pretty sure he could still manage to do that with how much space the bed promises. But a large part of Chan actually wants to be as close to Minho as possible, so he smiles and settles next to him on the bed, taking Minho’s hand in his own. 

“Minho,” He says gently, “It’s fine. Thank you.”

They laze around in the hotel room for an hour or so, taking turns to shower and change into clothes that aren’t sweats and baggy hoodies. Minho mentions that there’s a restaurant on the bottom floor, and so after unpacking a little they pocket their key cards and phones and make their way to the elevators. 

“So,” Chan says as they step into the elevator. He watches as Minho pushes the button for the first floor and then turns back to him, “I still have no idea where we are.”

Minho chuckles lightly, shaking his head.

“You didn’t figure it out by the view?”

Chan shrugs,

“It’s just buildings.”

Minho grabs his hand as the elevator doors open and pulls him out, and towards a large eatery. 

Chan is seated at a table, a large plate of noodles and cockles placed in front of him. He remembers this.

“We’re in Daejeon.” He says, more to himself than anyone else. Minho looks up from his own dish of various types of meat and grins.

“Does it look like I’m capable of taking you anywhere else?”

Chan can’t help but laugh, reaching a foot out to kick at Minho under the table. Minho catches Chan’s foot between his shins, holding it there for a moment, before letting go. Chan struggles to hide his blush.

“Eat.” Minho laughs, when he notices Chan’s struggle. “We have more things to do this evening, and I don’t want you running out of energy.”

Chan isn’t even surprised when they end up at the same festival he had visited with Hyunjin, a few months ago, and with Minho a year prior. Somehow, when Minho had called him a few days ago and asked for Chan to join him on a trip, he knew it would be exactly this. Minho was often unpredictable to other people, but never to Chan. Not really. 

The organisers seem to have gotten a little more creative this time. The event is set up fully fledged for winter, with festive decorations hanging from the odd rollercoasters and holiday themed foods and drinks chalked into the menus of the food stands. 

“Okay, what do you want to do?” Minho asks. When he speaks, small wisps of his breath curl in front of him, signalling just how cold it is. Chan takes Minho’s hand, which is warm as always. 

“I don’t know.” Chan says hooking his chin over Minho’s shoulder. Minho squeezes his hand gently and then gestures towards the house of mirrors. 

“Want to check that out?” 

It’s different, being in the house of mirrors this time. Chan isn’t obligated to pose in front of certain lightings with certain hues, and whilst Chan will forever appreciate Hyunjin’s love for photography, it’s also nice to hold tightly onto Minho and giggle into his shoulder when their reflections start to look unrecognisable. 

“Can we go over there?” Chan asks once they emerge from the bizarre mirror contraption, and whilst he highly doubts Minho even knows what is over there, he nods along anyway.

Chan easily navigates towards the cotton candy stand- next to the nachos and behind the Ferris-wheel. He smiles, a little giddily, when he’s handed a large pink fluffy cloud on a stick.

“Cute.” He hears Minho mutter from next to him. Chan turns to him, innocent smile fixed in place,

“What did you say?”

Minho raises an eyebrow,

“Me? Nothing.”

“No, you definitely said something.”

“Didn’t.” Minho responds, stubborn.

_“Did.”_

Minho simply turns away, like the conversation doesn’t exist anymore and Chan giggles as he rips a piece of the cotton candy off the stick and puts it in his mouth. It melts almost immediately, and Chan can’t help but squeal in pleasure. Cotton candy is just _so good._

“You’re so fucking cute, what the fuck.” Minho mutters, louder and clearer than last time.

Chan stares at him, wide-eyed for a moment before he dissolves into giggles, falling against Minho’s shoulder as he does so. He’s feeling ridiculously _happy_ over the prospect of being called cute by Lee Minho- twice!

“Come here, baby.” Minho murmurs, though he pulls away from Chan and tucks him under his arm instead. Chan can barely find it within him to protest when Minho steals some of his cotton candy. 

Chan leans into Minho’s warmth and Minho smiles down at him before retrieving his phone from his pocket and holding it out in front of them.

“Smile.” He says, doing so himself and Chan quickly does as told, even throwing in a peace sign for good measure. “Cute.” Minho laughs once the picture has been taken and Chan closes his eyes, counting silently. _Thrice!_

Minho turns to him fully then, and Chan is able to take him in for the first time that night. They’d been a little rushed all day, from the journey, to exploring, to getting to the festival and then exploring the festival, but everything seems to slow down a little when Minho looks at him. Chan can see the way his eyes glitter under the faraway beams from the rides that surround them and the neon lights from the stands next to them. Minho’s hair looks barely orange in this light, but it’s still there, a subtle hue, and Chan thinks he looks beautiful.

When Minho leans in, Chan doesn’t pull away, and instead angles his cotton candy out of the way to use his other hand and get a proper grip around Minho’s neck. Minho’s own hands rest on Chan’s waist, and they tighten once their lips meet.

Minho tastes just as sweet as he did when they had their first kiss- sugary and soft, like the cotton candy still held carefully out of the way. The kiss is short, chaste, and it leaves Chan wanting more when Minho pulls away.

“Come on.” Minho whispers, pressing their foreheads together. “Let’s go on the Ferris wheel.” 

Sunday with Minho at a hotel in Daejeon feels a lot like the Sundays they used to share together as a couple; slow, lazy, no rush. Their room is booked until the late evening, and they sleep in until the afternoon. Minho suggests various things, visiting the shops or eating from one of the many restaurants that the city has to offer, but Chan is perfectly content to lay in bed wrapped up in Minho’s arms. 

They browse through various things on TV until the later hours of the afternoon. Minho orders room service and they manage to leave the sheets long enough to wash up and eat. 

Chan crawls back under the covers at 4pm, and Minho laughs at him for it.

“What,” Chan whines into the pillow, “I haven’t had a duvet day in _months.”_

“Sure, babe, you deserve it.” Minho says, and Chan can’t see him but he knows he’s wearing that teasing grin. He can hear it in his tone. 

There’s a bit of shuffling from the floor and Chan lifts his head a little, curious. Minho is crouched by his bag, ruffling through it and picking things out, only to drop each item in turn onto the floor. 

“What are you doing?” Chan asks, leaning his head on his elbow.

“Charger.” Minho says, distractedly, “I’m starting to think I didn’t bring it.” He sighs, and Chan sees that he has indeed emptied out his entire bag, as he sits back onto the floor, looking defeated. Chan smiles at how cute Minho looks with a pout on his face.

“You can use mine.” He offers, “Should be in my bag.”

Mingo brightens up almost immediately, and dumps all of his stuff back inside before zipping open Chan’s bag. 

Chan drops his head back onto the pillow, placing his arms behind his head as he stares at the ceiling. There’s some music playing from the TV that they’d left on, and the window is open too, allowing a soft breeze to pass through. The rooms on either side of them are relatively quiet, the only sound in their own room being that of passing cars from outside, and the minute shuffling of Minho through his belongings.

When the shuffling stops, Minho does not stand to plug his phone in, like Chan thought he would. Minho’s phone still sits next to Chan on the bed, but Minho does not move.

“Min?” Chan calls, “Did you not find it?”

“No,” Minho says, “I got it.”

Chan sits up once more, confused as to why Minho’s voice sounds so incredibly croaky and far away.

He feels like crawling out of the open window when he sees what Minho is holding in his hand.

“Oh fuck.”

“You really-” There’s a flirty little smile playing on Minho’s lips as he holds up the box of condoms, arrogance leaking through his tone.

“No! No it was Seungmin!” Chan rushes to explain, “He _made me_ bring them he-”

“And what exactly did you put into Seungmin’s head that made him give you these?” Minho asks, his tone growing more and more amused by the second. 

“Nothing! I didn’t- _nothing.”_

Minho laughs then, a full body laugh, so hard that he drops the box onto the floor and then falls back onto the carpet. It must hurt, when he hits his head on the ground, but it doesn’t seem to faze him, as he continues to laugh at Chan’s weak protests.

“God,” Minho wheezes, once he’s calmed down a little. He wipes at the tears gathered in his eyes and Chan has to stop himself from walking over and kicking him where it hurts. “We really aren’t destined to take things slow, are we?”

“I _told you-”_

“Yeah, yeah it was Seungmin.” Minho waves him off, sitting up. He holds up the condoms again, his gaze shifting to the clock hitched onto the wall before meeting Chan’s eyes once more. His expression shifts into something suggestive, “We have three hours till we have to check out. Want to put these to good use?”

Chan has no idea how he manages to wake up on Monday morning, let alone get through a full day of classes and finally trudge his way to work- but he does. Somehow. 

The sight of his co-workers lifts his mood immensely, especially when Gyuri comes tearing through the kitchens just to wrap him in a tight hug.

“I heard!” She squeals, “Congrats!”

There’s about a dozen different things she could be talking about, and Chan’s face shifts to confusion after hearing her words,

“Thanks uh- what for?”

“Your grade!” Her lips stretch into a wider smile as she releases him, then ruffles his hair the way one would to a small child. Chan flushes. “You aced that huge project that’s been beating your ass for weeks, right?”

“Ah! Yeah- thanks,” Chan smiles, though he’s once again confused when he realises, “How did you even know about that? I only got the grade this morning.”

Gyuri’s gaze fixes on something behind Chan’s back, and Chan whips around to find a sheepish looking Changbin standing behind him.

“I may have overheard Hyunjin telling Jisung, who was told by Seungmin-”

“Jesus.” Chan groans, but he’s smiling, “You’re all a bunch of gossips, aren’t you?”

Changbin frowns,

“We’re _sharing_ your achievements, hyung. There’s a difference. We should party.”

Chan rolls his eyes,

“You just want an excuse to party.”

“Perhaps.” Changbin admits, then he grins wickedly, “But we _should_ be celebrating your good grades. There haven’t been many of them this year.”

“You _dick-”_ Changbin shrieks as Chan chases him around the counter, only stopping when Chan corners him against a table.

Chan is about to lunge forward, perhaps he’ll knee Changbin in the groin or put him in a headlock, he’ll decide once he gets close enough- but he’s stopped by a familiar hand on his shoulder, pulling him back. He finds himself colliding with a solid chest, and warm arms wrapping around his waist.

“Babe?” Minho’s voice is soft, and his tone comes off amused, “Don’t hurt the kids.”

Changbin scowls a little, either at the sight of Minho, or being called a kid, Chan isn’t sure and he’s a little too dazed to figure it out.

Although Seungmin and Hyunjin had gradually accepted Minho being back in Chan’s life, Changbin had been pretty stubborn and wary about it. He’d offered a sincere congratulations, however Chan knew it may take a while for Changbin to go back to trusting Minho. 

“Wow,” Jihyo’s voice floats from somewhere behind them, and Chan manages to release himself from Minho’s hold in time to see her emerging from the kitchen. She rests her head in the palms of her hand, elbows leaning on the counter. “I wish _I_ had someone to hold me against their chest every time _I’m_ about to blow up at Changbin.”

Gyuri smiles sweetly,

“You want someone to hold you for the rest of your life?”

Changbin begins to splutter out defences whilst Jihyo and Gyuri exchange high-fives and further teasing remarks at him. Chan smiles fondly from a distance.

He minutely registers Minho shuffling closer before he rests his chin on Chan’s shoulder and slips a steady arm around his waist.

“What are your plans for this evening?” 

“Not sure.” Chan’s eyes are still fixed on his friends in front of him where Gyuri is pinching Changbin’s cheeks between her fingers and Jihyo is derisively rubbing her knuckles on his head. Changbin fake-whines, though he’s definitely enjoying all the attention. 

“I heard you aced your project.” Minho says this like it’s something he’s had to dig out of his brain to remember. Chan knows that is definitely not the case, and Minho’s nonchalance is simply an act he puts on.

“Aced is an overstatement.” Chan responds, “I didn’t get like- a perfect score.”

“It was enough to push your grade up though, right?” When Chan doesn’t reply Minho presses a kiss to his cheek instead. “We can go out to celebrate if you want.”

“I think these losers wanted to celebrate or something.” Chan’s voice is low, but Changbin has sharp ears and his head whips around when he hears this.

“Who are you calling a loser, _loser?”_

Chan laughs, stepping back and pressing closer to Minho’s body when Changbin turns to him threateningly. 

“You losers.” He grins and then quickly looks at Gyuri, “Where would we even hold a party? Don’t you think it’s a bit excessive to _party_ because of a grade?”

“No such thing as excessive partying.” Jihyo grins- another party animal. Chan rolls his eyes when she fist-bumps Changbin.

Gyuri hums in thought, and Chan can see the moment an idea clicks in her head.

“We could have a get-together instead! Here! Tonight! I’m sure my parents wouldn’t mind.”

“It’s _Monday.”_ Chan deadpans. 

“Live a little, babe.” Minho drawls from behind him. He throws Gyuri a wink, “I think that’s a great idea.”

“Uh,” Gyuri hesitates, “Chan did your boyfriend just _flirt_ with me?”

Chan gently elbows Minho in the ribs, barely causing any pain, but it’s enough for Minho to wince at the contact.

“I’ve _told_ you to stop doing that to people.” Chan grumbles, “It’s not normal.”

“Dating your ex isn’t normal.” Minho shoots back.

“You’re not my fucking-”

“Okay, okay can you two have your lovers tiff later?” Jihyo cuts in, “We should make a guest list.”

“A _guest list?”_ Chan repeats, “I thought it was just going to be a small get-together.”

“Yeah, but somehow, you-,” Changbin pauses to point an accusing finger in Chan’s direction, “have a lot of friends.”

“He’s not wrong.” Gyuri quips, “Let’s get started then. I’ll go and double check with mom and dad if it’s all cool with them.”

It seems a little insane, when Chan walks into the parlour later that night. It isn't _that_ late, barely touching nine, but Gyuri’s parents had been kind enough to agree to close the place down early tonight. Chan had been shooed home whilst his friends worked on getting everything set up.

Minho is by his side when he returns an hour or so later, their fingers laced together. Chan had taken a shower and changed into jeans and a shirt, though the lingering cold weather had meant he’d also had to lug along a thick jacket. 

He’s pretty impressed with the way his friends managed to make the place look within a mere few hours. The tables have been pushed back and extra chairs stacked, with enough still left out for them to sit at. They really had only invited Chan’s close friends. 

He spots Felix and Hyunjin sitting at one table, sipping on drinks whilst Jisung, Seungmin and Jihyo sit at another. They’re laughing- probably at something Jihyo said, and Chan smiles at the prospect of his friends’ happiness. 

Gyuri is there too, icing something onto a cake, with Saerom helping her out. Chan spots Changbin hanging close by, though he’s caught up in conversation with Jeongin. 

“Come on, party boy,” Minho says in his ear, “Go and greet your guests.”

Chan sticks his tongue out, and Minho laughs, knowing how much Chan hates being the centre of attention. 

“Hyung!” Seungmin calls, waving them over. Before Chan can move however, Jisung is scrambling out of his chair and rushing over, his cheeks pink. Seungmin frowns a little, but goes back to his conversation with Jihyo, and the bustle around them continues in its low hum. 

“Hey,” Jisung says, a little sheepishly, and Chan belatedly realises that this is the first time he’s seeing Jisung since he called him out for hooking up with Minho.

“Hey Sung,” Chan smiles. 

Jisung looks between him and Minho for a moment and he looks like he’s about to bolt until Changbin appears out of what seems to be thin air, and gently nudges him forward.

“Jisung has something to say.” Changbin explains and then nods pointedly at his boyfriend. 

“I uh…” Jisung starts, stammering slightly, “I’m sorry for calling you awful things, Minho hyung. I know you’re not really that bad of a person, and I think Chan hyung is lucky to have you.” He pauses, then looks at Chan, “And I’m sorry for being so- judgemental when- you know.”

Chan is stunned for a moment, then he bursts into giggles, releasing Minho’s hand to pull Jisung into a hug,

“You’re so silly, Sungie. Did you _really_ think I was mad at you?”

“Maybe?” Jisung squeaks against his shirt, “A little?”

“I could never stay mad at you Jisung.” Chan pulls back and takes him by the shoulders, “You were only looking out for me, and I appreciate that. And also- I am not opposed to bullying Minho.”

“Hey!” Minho calls from behind them, but it’s fond. 

“So, we’re good?” Jisung asks, and Chan smiles,

“Of course we are.”

Changbin looks like he’s about to say something, but then Felix comes up behind them, effectively cutting him off.

“Babe,” Felix says, to who, Chan is unsure, “Come on, let’s go sit down.” He looks at Chan and throws him his bright smile, “We’re going to cut the cake now, hyung. And well, everyone kind of wants you to do it.”

Chan nods, and follows to where Felix leads him.

Everyone seems to have gathered around one huge table, and Gyuri’s cake sits in the middle of it. Chan squeezes into the place next to Seungmin to take a good look, and makes out the ‘ _congratulations Chan!’_ iced into the middle of the cake. He beams at her to show his gratitude, to which she simply nods in return.

Jisung raises his glass as Chan’s knife hits the soft sponge and yells out,

“To new beginnings!”

There’s a few grumbles, some laughs, people telling Jisung he’s a _sap,_ but everyone lifts their glass anyway and takes a drink.

They’re distributing the cake and laughing at _another_ one of Jihyo’s jokes when Minho sidles up next to him, and slips an arm around his waist.

“Having fun?” he asks. Chan nods, then turns his head to press a kiss to Minho’s cheek. When Minho pouts he laughs and presses a firm kiss to his mouth instead, which ends too soon as they both end up smiling into it.

“That’s great, baby.” He pauses, “Have you…?” he trails off and Chan closes his eyes, immediately knowing what his boyfriend is talking about.

“No.” He sighs, “I should probably do it now.”

Minho nods and gently kisses his temple, tightening his hold on his waist.

“Do you want me to-?”

“No I’ll- I should do this by myself.”

Minho nods once more in understanding, and then tips Chan’s face up by his chin and presses one more kiss to his mouth. Chan understands what it means without Minho having to tell him. _I’m here._

Chan gently extracts himself from Minho’s hold, fingers lingering before he takes out his phone and begins to walk away. 

His fingers shake as he dials the number, but he determinedly does not stop and pushes himself to hit the call button.

It takes a while for the phone to be picked up, and Chan is worried for a moment that it won’t be picked up at all, until a voice floats through the line. Although he hasn’t heard it in a while, it still sounds familiar. Chan finds himself relaxing.

“Hello?” 

“Hey,” Chan responds. From the corner of his eye Chan can see his friends. Hyunjin is sitting in Seungmin’s lap, feeding him cake whilst Felix, Jisung and Changbin do the same to one another, in a funny sort of three-way. Gyuri is talking to Saerom, blushing like mad as she does so. Jihyo and Jeongin have not stopped cracking jokes. Chan spots Minho too, his eyes already on him. Minho nods at him, fond, but most of all, encouraging. 

“Hello?” the voice repeats once more.

Chan smiles at Minho, equally fond, before continuing,

“Hey, it’s Chan. Is this Kevin?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> minchan, i'm so sorry, but i wouldn't love either of you for the hell of it
> 
> artwork can be found [here!](https://drive.google.com/file/d/14aFuvyncmPEAdsvIqDJCNhOFIPhLsbgp/view?usp=sharing)
> 
> playlists can be found on [spotify](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/4P4EuE2fFOJ8YxBuGbagUw?si=SfLgpMDURy-pEPMVu7bxvw) and [apple](https://music.apple.com/gb/playlist/would-you-love-me-for-the-hell-of-it/pl.u-GgA55GBCZGaV447)
> 
> find me on [twitter](https://twitter.com/feiixseo) and [cc](https://curiouscat.me/felixseo)


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